If I hate you, that's great, but if I have a story to support that hate, ah, that's even better. - One of your favorite words, jihad. (laughing) - That's my favorite hobbies. It doesn't matter now who do you vote into power, they will not listen to you, they would listen to the people who paid them to be there.

When the military came in, people were walking to me like, pointing their fingers like, don't speak about CCU, don't speak about the army. We love you now, but don't you, they were like that. So I called Jon Stewart, I was like, I don't know what to do. And he said the most interesting thing ever.

And say, if you're afraid of something, make fun about the fact that you're afraid of it. The following is a conversation with Bassem Youssef, a legendary Egyptian American comedian, the so-called Jon Stewart of the Middle East, who fearlessly satirized those in power, even when his job and life were on the line.

Bassem is a beautiful human being. It was truly a pleasure for me to get to know him and to have this fun, fascinating and challenging conversation. This is Alex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Bassem Youssef. Your wife is half Palestinian, and I've heard you say that you've been trying to kill her, but she keeps using the kids as human shields.

So have you considered negotiating a ceasefire? - Well, the thing is, every day, every minute of the day in a married life is a negotiation. Everything can blow up into a full-scale war, starting from a simple sentence like, good morning. What should we do with the kids today? What should we do with that piece of furniture?

Any sentence can lead you to heaven or to hell in the same time. - So you do negotiate with terrorists? - Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. - You must? - Yeah. And for her, I am her terrorist, too, so it's equal. - Terrorists on both sides. On a more serious note, when you found out about the attacks of October 7th, what went through your mind?

- If I'm allowed to use a curse word, I was like-- - As many as possible. - I was like, oh, shit. Part of my stand-up comedy is I describe a situation where I was in a restaurant with producers, and there was a bombing two blocks away in Chelsea, New York, in 2016.

And, of course, this is the like, damn, what's gonna happen to us now? And there's like two different reactions. There's the white reaction, which is like, oh, my God, I hope nobody is hurt. This is terrible, I hope everybody's okay. And there's the Arab reaction, what's his name? What is his name?

What is the name, you know? Because you know what's gonna come? It's kind of, I was scared what's gonna really happen in that area, and it's like, oh, my God, it's gonna be horrible. And the way that it was reported, I didn't know how to handle this. So I basically, I went into hiding for a few days, three, four days, and I talked about Piers Morgan team talking to me two times, three times.

I was like, no, I can't, how can I defend that? How can you defend the rape, the decapitated babies, and whatever? And then I started kind of looking in the news a little bit, and then I started seeing people coming on the shows and saying things that I know as an Arab, as a Muslim, as someone from that region, that it's not true.

But I didn't know how to, what to say, how to say it. So I said, by the third time when they asked me, I said like, fine, put me on. And I went there, it was more of a, figuratively speaking, a suicide mission, because it's a lose-lose situation. I can lose stuff in Hollywood.

I can, I even, I remember my managers like, Bassem, be careful, I mean, are you sure you wanna do it? My managers was like, please don't do it, please don't do it. And on the other side, if I don't perform well, whatever well means, I'm gonna be rejected by my own people.

So it was a lose-lose situation, because whatever I say, it will never be enough, and whatever I say will not be good enough. And I was going into there, and I felt that I was going into a trance for the 33 minutes that I was on the, on that interview for the first time.

- You blacked out. - I blacked out. I blacked out, and a lot of people ask me, is the earpiece, was that a bit, when the earpiece kept falling, it's like, no, it was really falling off, and it disconnected, and I had to save it, because I cannot see them, all I can hear, I can just hear them, and I could expect it at any time, okay, Bassem, thank you, and it's like, I was fighting for every second to say words, to put stuff in there.

- Yeah, for people who don't know, this is your conversation interview with Piers Morgan, and you couldn't see. - I couldn't see, I was just like, that lens with the camera, and I was just like-- - It was like a surreal dream or nightmare. - Yeah, hello, Bassem, I was like, hello, Bassem, I was like, hi.

(laughs) - And it could end at any moment, your career and everything. - Everything, yeah, yeah. - So what was the drive that got you to actually do it, to overcome that fear? - Multiple things. First of all, I don't wanna say it's just my wife's family, because my wife's family has always been there, but this time was different.

The bombing, the attack, they usually, one of those people that they're away for everything, whatever happened in Gaza, they are always in safe places, but this time, it seems that there was no place safe, and already we heard about two or three of the cousins and the uncles already lost their home, so this was too much.

So I wanted to say something for those people, because I know that, one of the jokes that I made, I was like, oh, it's Hassan, her cousin, he's a loser. He's a doctor, he's a doctor. And he, every time a hospital was bombed, we were worried about him. So I wanted to say that because I felt that these are, this is a family that I have never seen in my life.

I have never, she actually hardly saw an uncle or two, because they cannot leave. But I said, I need to speak, at least I do something for those extended family that I have never known, but also because when Piers Morgan team called me a couple of times and said, okay, let's see what's going on in the show, and I just watched the stuff, and the lies, and the one-sided reporting, that made my blood boil.

And then I thought, what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of, if I say something, I can lose my career, it's like, wait a minute. But that was the reason why I left Egypt. I said, wait, I left Egypt, I came to United States. I came to a land of the free, where I can say anything I want.

And yet I have limitation of what to say. I mean, I thought we left that shit behind. I mean, what's happening? And I understand, I understand the connection of how sensitive it is when you speak about Israel, and all of the ready-made accusations. But as an Arab, as a Muslim, I don't react the same when you talk about Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Egypt, or any of them.

It's like, hey, you wanna diss some of these countries? I'll do that with you, because I have strong opinions about what happened, and I already been expressing them. But when I talk, when that's why I speak, and there's a lot of Jewish people who come to my show, and they understand that.

They understand the separation. But that kind of grouping of blackmailing people, and saying and not saying what they have in their mind, it is that kind of like one of the things that kind of like pushed me to go on the show. - The thing that was bothering you, was it what was being said, or how it was being said?

- Both. Because there are lies, which is usually in the media, but there was the total disregard of humanity. You talk a lot about, in your show, about human suffering. And I felt that here, the human suffering was not equal. I felt, that's why I came up with this, like what's the exchange rate today?

What's the exchange rate today? There's, of course, it's terrible to see anybody die, but I feel that like, isn't our life not worth anything? - Yeah, you had a chart, akin to crypto, from an, you analyze it from an investing perspective, of course, in a dark human kind of way.

- That's the ROI on that. (both laughing) - And you were saying that a certain year was a good year. - Yeah, 2014. - 2014 was a good year for investment purposes. And also, to refer to the family member that you called a loser, you were saying that, you called him, had a conversation with him, and he keeps saying that he's not using anybody for human shields, and you called him a loser.

What are you, you can't even give a job. - The liar, he lied to us, because I have to believe, but this is the one thing, it's like, it's also one of the things, like how it was said. It was stuff that I've been hearing, I don't know what turned on in my head, but it's stuff that I've been hearing all my life from the media.

Israel warns civilians before bombing them, and that's okay, but that's not okay. Israel is trying to minimize the civilians, but killing them anyway, and that's okay, but that's not okay. So it is kind of like the indoctrination that we've been hearing, as if it is okay, and then suddenly, it's not.

- Yeah, there's a kind of, several layers of bullshit, almost sometimes hiding the obvious horror of the situation with kind of politeness and all this kind of stuff, just the basic value of human life. That said, it's a difficult situation. - It is, it is. - What would you do if you were Israel?

BB called you, awesome, big fan, big fan of your comedy. First of all, would you hang up right away? Would you hear him out? - No, I would definitely hear him out. (laughing) That's like, that was like, wait a minute, that's material, that's material, man. (laughing) It's like, so Netanyahu called me.

(laughing) I was sitting with my family, just like, I have my phone ready, like, oh, Netanyahu. (laughing) Yeah, it just shows up that way. I mean, what would you do? What would you do in this situation? - To answer this question, we need to understand how Israel thinks. There is an incredible speech given by Gideon Levy at a famous Israeli report in Haaretz, and he describes a situation where he was in the West Bank, and there was a checkpoint.

And in that checkpoint, there was an ambulance with a Palestinian patient, and it was there sitting for an hour and a half, not moving. And then he went to talk to the soldiers, like, guys, why are you not letting them go? It's like, ah, let them go, it's like, and then he told them, imagine if he was your father.

And the soldiers stood up, it's like, what? These are pigs, these are not humans. So when you tell me, what would you do if Israel would do, it really needs to, we need to ask, how does Israel look at the Palestinians and view the Palestinians, because they do look at them less than human.

And there is an incredible talk by Mehor Meyer. He was a Holocaust survivor, and he said, I learned in Auschwitz when I was there in the concentration camp that in order for a group, a dominant group of people to dehumanize another group, they need first to dehumanize themselves. And Israel looks at Palestinians as lesser people, as lesser beings, as some people who are dispensable.

And the way that they treat them is that they don't really care about, that's why that the exchange rate thing. So for me, if I am Israel, it will be like, what would you do if you're the United States in the time of the Native Americans? They were killing people with the millions.

When you dehumanize a group of people, you really don't care. So if I was Israel, I would do exactly what Israel is doing right now, because there's no one who's holding me accountable, there's no one stopping me, and I can get whatever I want throughout my history through violence.

- I think a lot of the things you just said are a tiny bit slightly exaggerated. So let me try, let's try. - Please, please, please. - So not everybody in Israel. - Of course. - So let's look at several groups. So people in government, IDF soldiers, and citizens that are neither of those.

And not everybody of any of those sees Palestinians as less than human, just some percentage. So what percentage is that in your sense? - It's the people who have the power. - So it's mostly the focus of your commentary when you say people in Israel, you really mean the people in power.

- The people have the power. But as much as, of course, I mean the people in power, because when I speak about, even when I speak about America, I speak about people in power. When I speak about Egypt, I speak the people in power, because I can't really talk about the 100 million people in Egypt, or the 11 million people in Israel.

Of course not, there are people who go in and they demonstrate against Netanyahu and they want him out of the government. But we have to admit that the Israeli society, it at a whole, have moved quite a bit to the right, and has been many extreme. And you know what happens when you go to the right, or you go to the most extreme, the other person go to the most extreme.

And extremism breeds extremism. So thank you for the clarification, but I really meant with the people of power. When people criticize the United States for going in Iraq, of course I'm not criticizing citizens. - But you made another point, which is an interesting point, and it's very difficult to see in the heart of people.

But I wonder if you look at the average Palestinian and the average Israeli, and when they look at the other, do they have some hate in their heart? Well, everybody probably has some. What is that amount? You know, when you look at a person that looks different than you, how much hate is there?

- It depends on what is the specific situation of each person. So in the Berlin Film Festival, just like a few, couple of weeks ago, there was an Israeli and a Palestinian receiving an award together. And the Israeli director said, "We're gonna go back to Israel. "He's gonna go to the West Bank.

"He will have no rights, "and I will have full living rights." These people managed to work together and be friends, and they have empathy to each other. Now, the average Palestinian, it's a very difficult question because is it the Palestinian in the diaspora, or the Palestinian in Gaza, or the diaspora in the West Bank, or the one in the citizen, as a citizen of Israel, who still have less right than a Roman citizen of Israel, a Jew.

And it really depends if I am, there are people in, Arabs in Israel, who are having a great life. And there are people, Arabs, who are having a miserable life. But definitely people that living in Gaza or in the West Bank is kind of like on the lower tier of their living conditions.

Now, let's talk about the hate. What does that Palestinian see with the Israeli? The Palestinian see oppression, limitation of movement, limitation of freedom. They have, and then when there's something happens, you see the full force coming in, destroying their home, taking away members of his family. There will be absolutely no reason for him to love the other.

The Israeli, because he doesn't have the power, but he lives under his government, all he sees is the rockets or whatever, but he sees the reaction, and he doesn't see what happened to those. And as humans, we are selfish. We see what really affects us as humans. And I cannot even imagine what it would be like to live as a Palestinian.

And I'm not gonna talk about Gaza, because everybody talks about Gaza. But let me give you an example. And I'm not gonna talk about the 12,000 kids killed in Gaza. Let's talk about just like the four weeks in the West Bank. March 4th, Amr Najjar, age 10, sitting next to his father, shot while he's sitting in a car next to his father by the IDF soldiers.

Mohamed Ziad, 13 years old, March 3rd, shot in front of a UN school while sitting with his friends. Mohamed Ghanem, age 15, March 2nd, he shot while standing in front of a storefront during a night raid. February 23rd, Saeed Jardal, he was killed by a drone fire. February 22nd, Fadi Suleiman, killed while standing in front of the top of a Red Cross building.

Nihil Ziad, February 14th, Valentine's Day, killed a shot in the head while leaving school. February 11th, Mohamed Khattour, US citizens, killed while being in a parked car. And Moaz Shams, February 9th, killed right in front of his home because a military car came reversing back to him and then somebody opened the door, shot him, and leave.

This is a daily life of people in the West Bank. - What is the justification the idea provides? - Terrorism. - Terrorism. - Or, I don't know, I mean, you cannot really say, like, human shields. But they would say, like, they were throwing rocks. There was a guy who went on Chris Rock and he said, like, his son, a US citizen, were killed, and they were throwing rocks, so he killed him.

Even when they were throwing rocks, you kill him. But the thing is, you see, this is how easy for them to get rid of Palestinians. I mean, I love, like, I was, I had to say I prepared a little bit for the podcast because you are in tech. So, and I am ignorant in tech.

There is a movie called "The Lab." It is directed by an Israeli director called Yotam Feldman. And he talks about how the military industry in Israel is very advanced. And what is really mind-boggling is in that movie, he shows how the military tests its weapons in the field in urban areas on Palestinians.

It is heartbreaking. You know, as a doctor, there is five stages of trials. There is, like, there is discovery, preclinical, clinical, and then market, and then post-market evaluation by the FDA, the FDA approval, and then the FDA post-market. Five, just to take a pill. And you go in, and he interviews people as, like, where did you test this?

They test it in the field. So, when you just, like, when human life is so cheap, and it is so indispensable, it made me, it gave me a visceral reaction. Because, you know, we as humans, this has been actually the state of humanity. Humanity has lived and survived and thrived by actually killing each other.

But there was kind of a, we were remotely, we were removed from it. People in Greece didn't know what Alexander the Great was doing. He was killing and pillaging. Like, we called him the Great, but he was killing. He was conquering, he was invading. Julius Caesar, all of the greats, he would do it.

But killing was difficult. Killing had to have some sort. You have to be with your enemy. Then you go back, catapults, then cannons, then a little bit back. And then you're kind of like standing remotely. Now you're killing people behind the screen with a button, with a push of a button.

You know? A lot of people say, "Terrorism!" They killed you with a knife. Killed one person with a knife, shot you. That's terrorism. But if you fly a $64 million F-16 and you drop off an A-84 bomb that costs $16,000, that's not terrorism because it's remote. You're behind the screen.

So, what happened? What Israel is doing? It is removing itself, like America too. Drones, and then when you push someone to be in, they always brag about bombing them to the stone ages. What happens when the screens and all of the obstacles that you have been put between you and those people that you have treated them this way, when this is a breach and you come face to face, you will come face to face with what you have created.

- Yeah, there's a lot of interesting things you just said. So, one is the methodology of killing. If you wanna look at some horrific large-scale killing, people often talk about the Holocaust, but that's visceral. You can look at Hollymore by Stalin where the murders through starvation. - By Churchill in India.

- In Churchill in India, and the great leap forward by Mao. - Yep. - So, starvation is a thing we don't often think of it as murder because it's quiet, it's slow, and the interesting thing about starvation is that the people don't complain as they're dying because they're exhausted.

That's one, and the other is the value of human life. It does seem that every culture has an unequal valuation of human life. So, those two things combined create a complicated military landscape of the world. - Yes, but the thing is, is that how we look at technology as the savior, as we talk about how AI will disrupt, will disrupt, will disrupt, and now if you go, you talk about like going to the West Bank, the people in the West Bank walk and they don't see humans.

They see people shouting them from towers or behind the screens or doing, and they have like biometrics that is developed by Basel system, like that's done by HP or Google and Amazon who are like part of Project Nimbus, and you see Indivision developing all of this like metric and surveillance and all of that stuff, and then you have like something like the gospel that like people have actually said that the gospel can actually create a target list using AI and give you a green, yellow, or a red to go ahead, and now AI is not just disrupting the market, it's disrupting our humanity, and it is, we became so comfortable killing people from afar, killing people with a push of the button, and now it is like, it's like dating apps, you know, when you swipe left and right, and it's like, oh, right, it becomes so like cheap.

It's not like meeting someone. It's like, ah, it's like a lot of fish in the sea. Same with AI, boom, 500 people killed, boom, they killed. It's so easy, it's so easy, it's so easy, and then it's so far removed from you, so when you put these people in this condition, you have literally put them in a different universe than yours.

You are behind in your air-conditioned screens like pushing them, blowing up a university. It's amazing, but then you meet what you have done, that you meet the Frankenstein that you have created, and then people are like, oh, look what they did to us. - You just gave me this image of a dating app from hell where leaders are just sitting there and kind of swiping left and right.

- Invade, destroy. - It's boring, right? - Like a puppet government. - Yeah, and then turn off the phone, go to sleep. So I got, you know, I traveled to the West Bank and I mentioned to you offline that I really loved the people there. Just, you know, I've met a bunch of people like that in Eastern Europe where I grew up.

Yeah, like the flamboyant, the big personalities, all of that. I also met a person who's in charge of a refugee camp who was shop an IDF soldier. And I'm not sure the words he said are important as the consequences of the thing that you mentioned, which is the deep hate in his eyes.

That didn't feel repairable at all. It was pain, it was like a foundation of pain and on top of that, a hatred. And I was like, wow, this is what, you kill one person, that's the way you create. Because we have kind of like a front row seat to what's happening.

We think we're in it, but we can't really grasp it. I mean, people's like, oh, we're just gonna go in, get Hamas out, and we're gonna get them back in. And not only the people get back in, how do you think they would look at you? What have you created?

What have you done? My show in Egypt was all about propaganda. It's all about the use of words. Words are very important. The decapitated babies were not chosen randomly because you see, it plants a certain image in your brain. Imagine if you're going in, what a baby can do?

It can smile, cry, and poop, that's it. It's absolutely no threat. So when you tell people 40 decapitated babies, they are so animalistic, they didn't see the babies. Women raped, of course he's an animal to do that. And they would go through that, and they would, what was very frustrating about the conversation is the gish galloping, the gish galloping, throwing, you see the distractions?

You see what happens? It's like, what's the proportion response? Can Israel defend itself? Do you condemn Hamas? Does Israel has the right to exist? Decapitated babies, raped women. Why don't the Arab countries take them? Why don't the Muslims kill Muslims? Look what happened in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq.

See how they kind of distract you? They throw little things at you. So you don't know what to do? Oh, the UN, anti-Semitic, October 7th, October 7th, October 7th. And then suddenly you are distracted and pulled into discussing all of these little things. And you're not discussing what's happening right now.

It is basically stalling, giving them time to do what they do. - So there's some degree to the propaganda, so the beheaded babies and all this kind of stuff, that is so over the top that it shuts down actual conversation about actual wrongs, war crimes on both sides. So it's overstating it to where everyone on social media and everywhere in the press and everywhere is arguing, almost become desensitized to actual horrors of death, which are more mundane.

They're not so dramatic as beheaded babies. - Because people, a baby is shot, but decapitated babies. There's like a knife blade that goes into the skin, the trachea, the flesh, the spine. Decapitated, you can just like, he's dead. No, you go in, this is the hate, so much hate.

And you know, that's why-- - You have made me laugh. (laughing) At the darkest shit. You're such a beautiful person. Your dark humor is just wonderful. - But you see, this happened to Jews before. Remember blood libel? Where did the blood libel come from? It come from these rumors that Jews suck baby's blood.

This is what they did to them. - That's what's in the cup. (laughing) - That's a very delicious baby cup. - Delicious baby blood. - But this is what you do. You tell people something, and it happened with the Native Americans when they were here, when they went in and they wipe a whole tribe.

So, and Jewish people, one of the minorities that were persecuted and had this used against them for a very long time, and it is terrible, and it's terrifying that it's been used again. - So I just did a very lengthy debate on Israel and Palestine. And the really painful thing from that, those two historians, it was deep, it was thorough, it was fascinating, but in constantly asking about sources of hope or solutions, there was none.

There was a sense of, like a really dark sense of it's hopeless, from both sides, it's hopeless. So, you know, I look to you. (laughing) For a source of, for a source of hope. Do you have, is there any hope here, solutions, short-term, long-term? - Obama have kind of summarized this beautifully in his book.

He said, the reason why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so chronic is one side has so much power, and the other side have absolutely no power. And that's what Obama would say. He said, like, you have Israel that basically don't listen to us, because they are supported by people who are bigger than the president, bigger than the administration.

They know that they can. I mean, like Netanyahu was caught on tape many times saying, like, he's basically like belittling Americans. Like, we control 80% of the population. We don't care. This has kind of like nonchalant, kind of like, oh, we have them. And there's nothing really that compels Israel to give up anything, because at the end of the day, what is compromise?

Compromise is like, I give something, you give something. Israel's not giving anything. And they project that on you. So, for example, how many times have we heard, like, oh, Palestinians were giving like four, five, six, seven, 15 chances, and they said no to them. And yet, when you read the history, that's not the case at all.

Like, for example, in 2000, the whole idea about like Arafat walked away from Oslo. That didn't happen. And there is an incredible video by, you know, what's his name, Joe Skorborow with Misha. And they were hosting her father, Brzezinski. He was the national security advisor. And Joe Skorborow said, like, well, you know, like, Arafat left the Oslo Accord and the Palestinians left.

And then Brzezinski said, like, this is like embarrassingly shallow. It's like, listen, what happened was, there was a lot of catches on the Oslo Accord. It was very unfair to the Palestinians. So, Arafat said, like, I agree, but I need to take it to the Arab capitals. And they went to Sharm el-Sheikh.

They came to Egypt. And he and Ehud Barak went to there. And then Ehud Barak left because there was election, and he lost the election, came, and it was destroyed. This is one of the reason why people, it's kind of like facts don't matter as much as what is the narrative that has been controlled.

- But what were the biggest barriers to peace there? Do you think it's fundamentally, leaders don't want a two-state solution? Or was there nuanced small differences that if solved could have led to a two-state solution? - I mean, maybe there was a certain point when the Israeli leaders were more open to compromise.

But I can't say that because each time Israel gives back land, it has to be after some use of force. The 1973 war, the Intifada, the first and second, the casualties in Gaza, they never give up land willingly and because of peace. Because if I have that much military, I can do whatever I want.

Why would I give up anything? I have that much power. Why would America or China give everything if they're so powerful? And especially if they have this kind of open check from the United States. So it is really about what can push Israel to give up something? Because you are so much stronger than me.

What could compel you to give up something? And this is why the whole thing about trying to equalize Palestinians and the Israeli state and government, it doesn't make any sense. - So what is the source of hope? You know, Jon Stewart, who will talk about it from many angles, somebody you admire, a friend, he proposed a two-state solution.

- Of course. - Look to the comedians for hope. - Yes, well, everybody's talking about the two-state solution, but Israel has said many times on Netanyahu and Bennis, like, there is gonna be no state solutions. In the past, it's like, even Naftali Bennett, he came in on the hard talk.

It's like, yeah, maybe in the past we wanted two-state solutions, but like, look, every time we give them land, they kill us. So no state solutions. And they are openly saying it. - That's perhaps rhetoric. - Rhetoric that is supported by action. Because look at what they're doing in the West Bank that you said.

They are cutting it, illegal settlement, piecemealing it. So how, if you have an intention at all to give them anything, why do you keep doing this? - And you've called it a bunch of little Gazas. - Yeah, yeah. - It's a nice little picture of what's happening. - Piecemealing it, dum, dum, dum.

Because it is, what happened in the past four months, the Palestinians have been microdosing on it for a very long time, little by little, little by little. And we would shout every time when it gets too much, and then we shut down, and then little by little. But this time it was hard.

It was hard to see the blatant oppression. And the world said, maybe the Hamas Ministry of Health are giving us the bad numbers. Maybe it's just human shields. And I laugh, there's 13,000 babies killed. Does that mean that there are 13,000 military targets hiding in their diapers? Because it is so, it doesn't make any sense to kill that many babies.

It's like, oh, oops, it is out of our hands. - It's hard to know what to do with those numbers. I mean, it's just one baby is enough. - But you know what happens? When you hear so many numbers, numbers become numbers. And you become so desensitized. And this is why there's a difference between saying, 13,000 Palestinian kids dead.

It's like Mila Cohen, an Israeli baby, 10 months old. She was killed in her crib. And this is what we hear from CNN. We never hear a story about a Palestinian kid. That's why, thank you for giving me the space for saying the news of the Palestinian children that were killed just in four weeks.

Because humans needs context, they need depth. They need like a 3D look at what they can look at. But if you just tell them numbers, they don't mean anything. - Is there some degree to where both leaderships, Hamas, PA, Palestinian Authority, Israel, all want war, like perpetual war to remain in power?

- There is, that's an interesting question. But I mean, let's admit something. The Arab regimes in the area have actually used the problem of Palestine in order to stay in power, in order to get excuses to like have this enemy. And Israel, the Israeli government has used that too, and maybe the Palestinians.

But my problem with when going into discussion, this is that the two sides are not equal. They're not equal in power. They're not equal in influence, and they're not equal in international support, especially with the United States. So Palestinians can, people who have made changes in history were the people with power, the people who would have the ability to change things.

And the Palestinians cannot really change, and what can they change? - Well, is that true though? - Okay. - With how much support the Palestinian people have? So just like you said, there's a lot of Arab states that will voice their pro-Palestinian position in order to distract from the young corruption and abuses of power in their own countries.

But I don't think if you look globally, there's a complete asymmetry of power and public opinion here, maybe in the West. But if you look globally-- - But do they have the same kind of weapons that the Israeli have? - So literally power? No, there's a major asymmetry of literal power.

- Some money to their leaders? Does that make any difference? I mean, and also when you say Palestinian authority, which authority are you talking about? Hamas or the Palestinian authority who has been kind of a domesticated, kind of like a puppy for the Palestinians, who basically have been an informant on their own people.

And this is the thing also that kind of like really pissed me off when I was hearing the thing about Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, Hamas. We have Netanyahu on tape confessing that he supported Hamas, gave him money in order to cause factions between the Palestinians. So it's just like, you just told me this.

You just told me Netanyahu supports Hamas. But Hamas is like, what? - I mean, to which degree does Netanyahu represent the Israeli people is a real question. - To which point does Trump or Biden represent the American people? - And to which degree does Hamas represent the Palestinian people?

- Does, none of these represent it, but who have the power in order to make the decisions? It really comes down to that. - Well, who does have the power? - You're giving a lot of power to Israel. - Yeah. - But the Arab League-- - What should Hamas do?

What do you think we should Hamas do? - Continue doing what a charter says, which is trying to destroy Israel. And the role of the Palestinian people is to overthrow Hamas and get a more moderate leadership probably. And the role of the Israeli people is to vote out this right-wing government and elect a more moderate leader so that there's a chance at peace with two moderate leaders.

- So before Hamas even got to control 2006 Gaza, there was Eriel Sharon in 2000. And we all know what happened. And Ariel Sharon kind of like had made, came up with this amazing policy of like breaking people's kids' bones in the Intifada. So Hill Baraki was also like, I mean, which one is moderate?

I mean, I think is Hamas is a product of what happened. I mean, we can, if there was no apartheid in South Africa, there would be no NFC. There would be no Nelson Mandela. If there were no Nazis in Paris, there would be no French resistance. And I'm not saying, and again, I'm not, I don't wanna be put in a position to defend Hamas or anybody because you know what that entails.

But those are like Hamas, again, not defending them. They went into October 7th. What was their, why did they did that? Like release our hostages, the people in prison. Because if you're talking about people who were kidnapped, Israel kidnaps people every single day. And when they had the first exchange in November 4th, Israelis, 400 people, three quarters of them were women and children.

Why are those people in prison? There's one in four kids that are in prison that stay in solitary confinement, which is by international law, a form of torture. And you're putting kids through that. - Is it possible, so first of all, ceasefire. - Yes. - And longer term, is it possible for Arab states and the United States to get together and with power through diplomacy enforce a solution?

- It's a very, very ideal solution. But you know, and I know that Arab states don't really have the power. All of the powers are in the hands of America. - They have the power. See, I would, I think they have the power. I don't-- - Maybe they don't want to use it.

- They don't want, well, that's-- - Maybe they don't want to use it. - Because there's a benefit, like the dark, the dark sense I have is that a lot of people win from the suffering that Palestinians are going through because they can point to that and distract from-- - Definitely, definitely.

- Corruption in their own states. And then obviously Iran can benefit also from the same kind of dynamic, distracting from the authoritarian nature of their regime. - Definitely, but what is the core of the problem here? Is it the Arab states using the suffering or actually the suffering itself?

And the suffering comes from people being displaced, their homes were taken away. There are seven million Palestinians in diaspora. Seven millions, seven million went out there and now they're living in Canada and America and Europe. They had homes there, they cannot go back to. 1.7 million people of the people in Gaza don't belong in Gaza, they were pushed from other places.

The piecemeal thing of people are being, you know, in Germany, I'm gonna shift gear a little bit, it's gonna be a little bit of fun. There is a book that I bought the rights to and I want to turn it into a movie. And I bought, I optioned the right for two years in March of last year, before October 7th.

After October 7th, I bought the permanent right. That book is called "The Muslim and the Jew" and it is written by an author called Ronin Steinke. I read an article about this book in 2016 and I chased that book for rights for seven years. I didn't have that much money, but I wanted that book.

And that book was translated into English called "Anna and Dr. Halmy." And that book tells the incredible story under Nazi Germany, where Arabs went in droves to Berlin in 1920s after the First World War in the Weimar Republic and they became doctors and engineers and journalists for two reasons.

Number one, it was dirt cheap, very cheap because of the inflation. And two, a lot of the Arab nationalists didn't want to send their kids to England or France because they were the occupiers. And Dr. Halmy was the hero of that. He's an Egyptian doctor and that's why I kind of like, I personally kind of connected with him.

And he went to medical school, didn't find a place to live, so he lived in the Jewish ghettos, like many Arabs. He didn't find a school to work, a hospital to work in, so he worked in a Jewish hospital. So there was a lot of Arabs who lived with the ghetto.

And actually the first director of the Berlin Mosque was a Jewish convert who converted to Islam and he was a gay activist. I'm telling you, this is like a crazy story. And this is not a fiction story. This is actually like a nonfiction. It's written actually based on the statement and the documents of the Nazis and the Gestapo.

Dr. Halmy, he was in this hospital and the Nazis came in and they killed and tortured and beat up the Jewish doctor and they made him the head of his department. Then he was, so now he's surrounded by Nazi doctor. They didn't touch him because he was an Arab.

There was kind of like a thing between Germany and the Arabs because they wanted to appease to them in order to have kind of a grassroots base in the Arab world where he want to go next. And this is why 1934, 1935, the racial laws of Nuremberg, they had a name change.

First they were called anti-Semitic. Then they changed into anti-Jewish because also Arabs were Semitic. So they wanted to appease the Arabs. Now, what happened to Dr. Halmy when that happened to him? He would go back to the ghetto and he would see the apartments next to him, the Jewish apartment, become more and more and more flooded with people because they were moving Jews and pushing them and putting them together, pushing them to the side.

And each flat, each apartment, instead of one family, it would have three, four, six, seven families. And he was there going into a home and he looked. He was there. This is where the people he grew up with, he lived with. And now he's seen that kind of discrimination just because he was an Arab.

And then he started to kind of atone for, because he felt responsible because he wasn't treated the same way. And he started to go and treat Jewish people in their homes because they couldn't go to hospitals. And then one family gave them his daughter. It's like, this is Anna, save her.

He took her, pretended that she's his niece, put a hijab around her, taught her Arabic, called her Nadia, my daughter's name, by the way. And he hid her in plain sights for seven years in front of the Nazis as his nurse. It's an incredible story. And then not just that he went to prison and then he went out and he formed with the Arab people that was in prison with him a network that saves 300 Jews.

See that kind of story? This is the Jews that were living in the Arab world. I'm not saying that the Jews living in the Arab world was living like an incredible life. Of course, as a kind of a minority, they did not have the full power or the full advantages of the rule, that's normal.

But we had this kind of a relationship before Israel was erected in 1948. And then, of course, everybody looked at Jews at that time as fifth column. And of course, the nationalistic regimes used that. And this is why what Biden said was very dangerous when he said, "If there is no Israel, "no Jew in the world will feel safe.

"You are the leader of the free world. "You are the president of the United States. "Do you mean that you are telling me "that the Jews in your country, "in the United States of America are not safe? "That is wrong on two levels. "Number one, America historically and right now "is more safe to Jews in the world than anybody.

"They are safer than the Jews in Israel. "They never had pogroms or the Holocaust like Europe. "They live here a good life. "Not perfect life, but they are better. "Second of all, if you're the president "and you're telling that a group of people "will not feel safe unless there is a different one, "you are already feeding into their fifth column.

"They're like, you're Russian, you come from there. "And there is a group of laws in the Russian Constitution "that says that Russia will protect its citizens "everywhere in the world. "What happens if the president says like, "oh, you're Russians, you're protected by your own country, "you don't belong here?

"This is terrible." - Yeah, you're right, that's actually an indirect threat. It's like even saying Muslims cannot feel safe in America or something like this. That means like that's a threat. - But what would a Jewish person in Beverly Hills or in Brooklyn feel if he hears that? You are already telling people you need to be loyal to Israel.

I mean, Israel is a foreign country. I am sorry, but Israel is a foreign country. Israel is a client country that we sponsor and it should actually be responsible and held accountable for what they do. - You mentioned 1948, the Nakba, but before that, '41, '39, '41 to '45, the Holocaust.

What do you do? What do you do with the Holocaust? How do you incorporate into the calculus of what's-- - Oh, it's terrible. - Of morality that leads up to the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians from the land? How do you work that out? - It is terrible, but like, I mean, what the systemic annihilation of Jewish people under the Nazi, that is like a carefully engineered, thought for, planned, it was terrible.

It was like kind of like the human ingenuity put into like something that is very evil. But also, it is not just that happened. We need to remember that Otto Frank, the father of Anna Frank, has his visa, refugee visa rejected by the United States. There's a lot of people that were rejected by the United States, rejected by other European countries, and then they were pushed into Palestine.

So you have to put yourself between like, and the Arabs, okay, we're sitting here, okay, come, and then, all right, you don't have a home or a country anymore. That kills you. I mean, you see, if I'm not an Arab and you give me that kind of piece of like terrible human treasure, like, oh my God, that is terrible.

But then I'm an Arab, it's like, yes, I'm so sorry, but what do I have to do with that? Why is that my fault? The persecution of the Jewish people have started since the eighth and ninth century because they were like, they were first anti-Christians. They were like criminal immigrants.

They were like conspirators. This is the antis, like people kind of like, it's as if Europe kind of like throw antisemitism on us. You understand that like Henry Ford, Henry Ford is one of the biggest anti, he was the inspiration for Adolf Hitler. (laughs) This is how antisemitic Henry Ford was.

And you kind of like gloss over that. And then suddenly we as Arabs have to pay the price. Why? - Several questions I wanna ask there. So, but one, just zooming out, why do you think hatred of Jews has been such a viral kind of idea throughout human history?

- Oh, it's very easy. It all started from Christ. They killed Christ, they killed Christ, they killed Christ. They're the killer of Christ. - That's a very sexy story. - That was so, yeah, that was, and that stayed for years. That stayed for centuries, I'm sorry, centuries. They're the killer of Christ.

And then the Catholic Church did not allow usury, but they would work in usury. So they become rich. Now the people that we hate, that we accuse them of killing Christ are becoming rich. So that's envy now. And that's hatred. I mean, when you talk about ghettos, ghettos was not just a secluded parts in cities.

Sometimes those ghettos were outside the cities. Jews were not even allowed to work a lot of professions. They were not allowed to get into the syndicates of certain professions. So they had to go work usury and they got rich. So the people hated them more. The first crusade didn't kill a single Muslim.

All they killed were Jews. And when they finally arrived to Jerusalem, all they killed were Jews. They almost annihilated the Jews. So it was all this. And of course you have the dark ages. Who do you need as an enemy? The Jews, all right? They're the killer of Christ.

There's nothing bigger than this. And then you fast forward. I mean, one of the things that I found out that was very, very, very, very crazy when Henry Ford imported the protocols of the elders of Zion. By the way, in the Arab world, protocols of the elders of Zion is so popular.

And for obvious reasons. And for the people who don't know, it's kind of like a bunch of stories. And basically it's like the Jews saying, like, "We gotta control the war. "Then we're gonna do this, "then we're gonna do that," and whatever. What people don't know, that that is a work of plagiarism.

It was plagiarized from a satirical play called "Conversation in Hell" between Machiavelli and Montesquieu. And it is kind of like based on one chapter or one scene or something. It's crazy. - But it's crazy how sticky it is. - Yes. - That's weird. - Yes. Because if I hate you, that's great.

But if I have a story to support that hate, that's even better. - But it's like one of the best stories, one of the stickiest stories about hate. - Of course. - It's probably the most effective 'cause a lot of peoples hate other groups of peoples, but that's just like the sexiest story of them all.

- Because humans need to concentrate their hate, their insecurities, and their shortcomings into one thing that they can practice that hate on. If it's a person, great. If it's a group, even better. - But how do you, into this calculus, incorporate that that group is pretty small? There's 16 million Jews worldwide.

And you mentioned how is that the responsibility of the Arab peoples? Everybody should be to blame for not taking in Jews after the Holocaust. But the reality of the situation, if we look at the religious slice of this, there's 16, let's say, million Jews, and there's, I don't know how many Muslims, but 1.8 billion?

- Yeah, yeah. - That difference, that 100x difference, do you incorporate that into the sense that Jews in Israel might feel for the existential dread that we might, this small group might be destroyed? - Jews in Israel have every right to feel afraid because of everything that they see and everything they've been told, everything.

But I would say that the calculus or the numbers doesn't, like, of course, like being small, it is, of course, a factor, but it is never an excuse in order to take something that's not yours. It's saying like, hey, you have 300 million Americans, and we have 52, 50, so it says give one state for another, there's too many of them, too many of you, just give them something, you know?

It's like the fact that I have something and you don't, and there's too many of me and there is little of you, and then you come in, and it's not really, Israel against the Arab world or the Muslim world because we have to say, we fucked up big time.

But it is the Palestinians that are in, and they are being subjected to that. So it's not really like the 1.8 billion and the 16 million Jews. And the 1.8 billion, if you look at them, some of them, like, don't care, some of them live into regimes that being oppressed, and those regimes are supported by the United States in order.

It's easier for me as an empire to take what I want from this country if I control the dictator. And I tell them that his power is linked to my ability, to my desire to keep him in power. So that's why you have a total disconnect between people in power in the Arab and the Muslim countries and the people themselves.

- Can you speak to 1948, you know, 'cause you mentioned taking land that's not yours, maybe parallels with Native Americans. - Yeah. - There was a war. The Jewish minority fought that war against several Arab states and won that war. How do we incorporate that into the Catholics? - Yeah, well, that's also a misconception, like a misinterpretation of the event because it seems that it was, like, a small, it's kind of like a David and Goliath kind of story.

But, and I was always like, how did we not do that? But in reality, with numbers, I can't pull it up right now, but if you look at the numbers, the number of tanks, the planes, the trained officer, because those, many of those Jewish fighters came from World War II.

They were seasoned fighters. And they actually had more planes, more tanks, more artillery, more pieces of weapon, more of the all of the other combined because the people that really, like, fought was Egypt. And you have to, in 1948, many of those Arab countries didn't even have their independence.

So they would kind of, like, send, like, a cavalry or, like, a people in horses. But in fact, the whole idea was, like, we won against seven nations. The numbers were totally in Israel's favor. They were better equipped. They were better trained. They had, like, more tanks and artillery and aeroplanes.

And they planned better. So yes, they deserved the win because they planned and we did it. - So to you, there was an asymmetry in military power even then. - Yeah. - But what do you do with the fact that the war was won? So, like, if you look at the history of the world, there is wars fought over land.

I agree with you. This has been the history of humanity. Humanity was not living peacefully. It's all about, like, people taking people and killing people, taking their land. But there's two difference here. Mostly, usually, the conquering power, like, for example, England. They had England and they conquer you in India.

And after the occupation finished, they go back to England. France, Greece, Persia, Egypt, they were, like, go and expand and shrink, expand and shrink. It's all been there. What is different here is exactly what happened in Australia and the United States. A group of people came in, not just to conquer and take the land, but to completely change, to replace them and get them out or kill them.

It was very easy with the Indians because they had smallpox, there was no social media, they did it over 400 years, they had time. The problem is, what is happening right now, I agree with you, it might not be that new, but we are there and we're watching it happen.

- And so now we have to confront the realities of war and empire and conquering. - Because you know what's the problem? We told ourselves we can be better. - Yeah. - After 1948, there was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It means that we are gonna be better humans.

We're not gonna kill and take land, we're not gonna displace people, we're not gonna take people for what they are. There's now laws, there's international laws, international court of justice. And now Israel is giving the middle finger to all of them. - So isn't in some fundamental way, this whole thing that we're talking about is us as a civilization on social media, in articles and books, in newspapers, we're just trying to figure out who are we as a people.

- I think that the shock came from the fact that we thought that we as humanity have evolved and now we are, what have actually changed is that we became more advanced in effectively eradicating a group of people because of the technology that we have. And the fact that we can do that under the eyes and ears of all the world and we are watching it under a phone, we have a window, we have a window to the war.

You know, 1945, people didn't know what was happening in Japan, well, we heard about it on the radio. Like, oh, today our forces came in and they launched, I don't know. We don't know, we heard it. We maybe saw pictures after that and it's quite edited. But now we see it, we're into it.

And it is so much for our psyche and we can get it. And it's like, and the Arabs are saying like, guys, you told us we came to the West because we were told that we were equal. You know the university declaration, right? One of the co-authors, his name is Stefan Hessel.

He's a Jew, he is a survivor of the Holocaust. And you know what happened to him? He died, by the way, a couple of years ago. But he, before he died, he was canceled by so many people and he was called antisemitic. Because he joined the BDS movement and he spoke of Palestine.

That is the author of the universal declaration of human rights that we value so much and we think that that would define our humanity. But then we go in and we are shocked. It's like, maybe we were sold something. Maybe that was false advertisement. - You shared a tweet by an account called Awesome Jew.

(laughing) It reads, "Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Yusuf." Comedian in quotes, by the way. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, because I'm not funny. - So Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Yusuf is now denying, I love that you retweeted this like twice. - Yeah. - I guess, because it's advertising some upcoming dates.

He's now denying October 7th massacre. The Muslim radical Bassem Yusuf is notorious for his radical, radical, said twice, for his radical hatred of Jews and Israel. In a recent clip, he claims that the atrocities committed on October 7th are fabricated or are looking for all information regarding any of his upcoming shows, as well as the venues which host the scumbag would Jews feel safe around this Nazi, Nazi.

- Yeah. - I've never, this is my first time interviewing a Nazi. - You know, it's my first time I actually get called a Nazi. - First time. - First time, I have been called so many things in Egypt. So in Egypt, I was called a CIA operative a Mossad spy, secret Muslim brotherhood, a secret Jew, secret Jew.

There was also an article that was published about me in the state-run media saying in details how Bassem has been recruited by CIA agents using Jon Stewart in order to use satire to bring down the country. I was a Freemason, an infidel. A member of the Knights of the Temple, something like that.

And there's actually people, the Muslim Brotherhood on their show, they would say like, he is actually an Israeli and they have forged an Egyptian ID for him to come. So it's kind of like when I get, I said, I had, I left all of that behind and I come here, it's like, boom, anti-Semitic Nazi, damn.

I mean, I really covered everything. I don't know what else. I mean, I think I have, it's kind of like I'm collecting PhDs. I'm just like getting like all of these credits. - How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the attacks? I mean, this goes back to the decision to do the interview with Piers Morgan.

Like how do you like psychologically do all of it? - These kind of attacks, at the beginning, it's fun. But when they evolve into something else, so for example, I was like laughing of all of the stuff about calling me this, calling me that, but then when people would come and thread the feature, because it's not the people who are making those accusations that would come to you.

It's the people that will hear and see those accusations and act on it. And there's always the fear of like, I mean, we have in the airport a lot of things that somebody would hear something about someone else and go kill him and whatever, like anybody else. So there's this, but somehow I wanna make fun of it.

And it is to be called an Islamo-Nazi, it must been the funniest thing ever because it's Islamo-Nazi, wow, how did you? And a radical Muslim, me, a lot of Islamists hate me. They will call me a secular infidel. (laughing) So it's kind of like, who am I? Maybe I have an identity crisis and I need the people to tell me who I am.

- Well, let's go to the beginning. Let's go to your childhood. You grew up in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt. (laughing) Well, let's figure out how you came to be who you are. - How did you become an Islamo-Nazi? - Yeah, exactly, it's a long journey. I do like the swastika tattoo on your ass, which I didn't-- (laughing) - How did you see my ass?

- You know what you did. - I know what you did. - It was very inappropriate. You're also obviously a sexual harasser of me. (laughing) - Is this like a me too? - Yes. - This is like 2020, someone will come up, it's like, okay-- - Yeah, we have flip it.

This is your me too moment. - All right, so Cairo, what's a defining memory, positive or negative, from your childhood? - My memory in general was cool, it was cool. I went to a Catholic school for primary school, the elementary, and by the time I'd done, there was kind of like a start of a decline into the public education, and my parents, they're like middle-class working officials.

My dad was a judge, my mom was a business professor, and they were like one of the people who's like, they didn't have that much luxury. My dad drove like a regular car, a Fiat, which is like the equivalent for the Lada in Russia. - Thank you for speaking to the audience.

- Yeah, yeah, the Lada, and-- - So would that be a good car or bad car? - No, no, it's kind of like the minimum. My dad was not like a man of showing off. Whatever money they would do, they would put it for us, education, give everything to their kids.

This is kind of like a very, very typical mentality, and I'm sure it's in many cultures, but like we grew up with this, like everything that we have is left for kids, so they would put us into education. So middle school, that was the big, 1986 was the beginning of the explosion of like international schools, private schools, and these schools were relatively expensive.

Of course, now with today's currency, it's ridiculous, but at that time, it was very expensive. So I went to that school, and from, there was this moment was like, you feel less right away. I mean, of course, there's the regular bullying and stuff, but it's not that. It's kind of like you always feel less.

You don't have that much of like purchasing power that allow you to go to the same outings or travel with them, and even like how you dress, it will be modest compared to them. So I was always an outsider. I was, and I compensated with that by two things, being good at school and being good at sports.

So I was not like the typical nerd who was just like that. I was like I was playing football, basketball, crattering field, and I was like one of the, people would like to have me on their team. So I wasn't like kind of like, ah, he's a nerd, get him away.

But I never had a girlfriend. I never had any kind of like, it was not like, I was not boyfriend material. So that's kind of like, it leaves remnants in you that you're not good enough. - But psychologically, you're always, like when you're by yourself, you felt like an outsider.

- Yes, all the time. And that's why it kind of like, I'm more of a loner. I don't have a lot of what you call friends. I have acquaintances, people that I do stuff with, but I don't have like the people that I tell them everything. When I went to medical school, now medical school is a different animal.

Medical school is where all of the people from the public schools go. Public schools are very like, they are not, they don't have like, they don't have English language as like a strong partner, but they are brilliant people. So because they would mostly study in Arabic, but they are brilliant and they are very, very, very smart, very sharp.

But then I'll go there, now I am the sissy boy from the private school that comes into medical school. Now I'm an outsider again. And I go into residency and I pick up salsa. So now I'm a salsa teacher while being a cardiothoracic surgery resident. And I'm an outsider for the third time because in salsa, I'm kind of like the respectful doctor.

And in resident, I'm the guy who is just dancing. So and everything, of course, as a medical resident, you will mess up a lot. So they would always like, oh, because you're a dancer. Oh, because you don't care about medicine. You just like wanna go there and dance with women.

(laughing) Which is true. - Yeah, it's true. (laughing) And so all of my life, I felt that I'm an outsider. I'm not part of the team. I'm not part of the core group. So and I have a story that you would love. Right before my residency, I was so much into salsa.

So I had all of the money and then you save that. And I was working summers and I was doing extra jobs. And I took that money and I went to Miami in order to learn at Rueda de Cazino, which is the Cuban kind of like circle salsa kind of thing.

And I went there in the summer of 2001. And my return ticket was 9/12, 2001. (laughing) - Universe has a sense of humor, I gotta tell you that. - No, no, no, 9/12, I was supposed to be on a plane coming back to Egypt. What happens, thank God, I ran out of money 10 days before that.

So it's like, all right, I changed my ticket and I came back, 9/11. I'm kind of like, my mom, "Wake up, wake up, what, what?" And I see like the two tower phone. It was like, my mom's like, "Oh, you're here, you're here, "you're here, thank God, you're here." And I was like, I could have been in Guantanamo right now.

(laughing) - Flying at 9/12. - But by the way, I was in Miami when they went to the flying school, in Miami. So, I mean, I had like 9/11 written all over my face. - You'd be all over the news. - All over the news, and my mom's like, "What?

"He went there to dance salsa? "I didn't know that salsa is like a name for terrorism." (laughing) - Why salsa? Why did that attract you? And what, like, can you explain what salsa is? So I mentioned to you offline that I've been doing a little bit of tango, trying to learn it.

- Yeah, like you know, samba, salsa, pachata, merengue, it's kind of like Latin dances. And it's like, you know, I don't know how you describe salsa. Couple dance on Latin beat. (laughing) And I did it because I once, and I talk about that in my Arabic stand-up comedy, not the English, I talk about like how I was, you know, I didn't have like really like a great like social life.

And my friends went there one day and I go into a place which it was called El Ghetto Negro. No, no, it was called Big Fat Black Pussycat. And then I think they thought it will be like racist or something, so it should change it to El Ghetto Negro.

Anyway, so. (laughing) - Great, great. - I know! - Great decision. - I know! So I went there, it's like, "Damn! "Music and women and my doctor, "a doctor dancing salsa, that is a cheat magnet." - Yeah, 100%. - You know, we do everything for that. - All of humanity.

- Even power, even money. - All the wars we've been talking about. - Women. - At the end of the day. - The approval from the other sex. We are babies, we are terrible people. So of course, like, I mean, that was like great. But then I, as a nerd, I went in so hard and now I became a salsa teacher.

- Yeah. - And I earned more money from salsa, more than I did as a doctor's resident. (laughing) - I didn't know this part of you, that's hilarious. - I know, I was making a killing amount of money. Like, huge amount of money. And I was just like, you know, I would go finish my shift and I'd go to the salsa class.

And sometimes I would have like 70 people in my salsa class. - Oh, wow. - I had like the biggest salsa class in Egypt, in the beginning of 2000, and it was fantastic. And it was an outlet, because you go there and there's the shifts and people dying. Damn, and they go, salsa.

(laughing) - Can't escape. You must have been good. - I was okay. I was cool, I was fun. There were people better than me, but I have a thing about teaching. I like teaching people. - So you mentioned heart surgery. So what motivated you to become a doctor? - It was a choice of exclusion.

I mean, there's nothing else you can do with these high grades other than doctorate in engineering. I hate math, so go be a doctor. (laughing) This is the Middle East. What do you expect? It's either, like in my joke in my show, I said like there's, it can be one of three things in the Middle East, a doctor, an engineer, or a disappointment.

It is, that is the choices that you have. (laughing) So years after, I'm a disappointment. (laughing) - Here I am. - You're damn good at it, though. (laughing) That's a hard path, though. - Yeah. - And it's a fascinating one. - Can I tell you something? - Yes. - I was thinking about why did I actually go into medicine, and why did I always choose the hardest thing, although I didn't love it?

And I have to tell you, I had an epiphany only two weeks ago. And I don't know if that's actually related or not. You know, remember when I told you I went to this school, and I didn't have that much money. And I didn't have the luxury of time or money to be with those people and do what they do.

So by the time I finished school, and everybody was going to university, oh, everybody in my school went to the AUC, the American University in Cairo, of course, private, yeah. Like American education, party time. I mean, of course, they're brilliant and everything, but they have, yeah, they have a different social life.

And part of me, now I kind of like, I realized that just like very, very recently. Maybe I went to the hardest school ever, so I don't have space to use other than studying. Because if I have that much space, what I'm gonna do with it? I don't have that much freedom, I don't have that much money, I can't compete with those people going out, so maybe I need a solid excuse that I'm in a place where I don't have that much of a spare time.

- Is it also possible, I like how this is a therapy session where we're psychoanalyzing, is it also possible that you always just pick the hardest thing you could possibly do? - Maybe, but-- - Maybe that's the Piers Morgan thing, too. - Maybe, but like when I left Egypt and I came here, I still had the choice to go back to medicine.

- Sure. - But I hated it. I hated it, medicine traumatized me. The amount of like, you give up, you know my brother in Egypt, he had a daughter, she's a brilliant basketball player. She is in the national team, amazing. I used to play basketball also in the Egyptian league, but I never, I was kind of like, my favorite position in the court was the bench, and I was not as good as her, but she, and then it was time for her to go into college, and he didn't talk to me for six weeks.

I said, "Tamir, what's happening to Farida? "Which college?" Like, I didn't wanna tell you, she went into medicine. I said, "What, medicine, why did he do?" Because he knows how I hated it. I was traumatized, and I said like, "Dude, she's a basketball player. "Make her go like to an easy school." So that's kind of-- - You still did it, you still did it.

- Yeah, I still did it, but I don't know, is it because of the difficulty, or because of what I told you? Maybe I needed something. Maybe because I was not very confident in my social life, so I needed a distraction, not to have that much of a social life.

- Oh, wow, okay. - You understand? - Yeah, uh-huh. - It's kind of love, because I will always have an excuse, I'm studying. I have something, I have exams. And I don't know, I kind of self-sabotaged my own thing, because I couldn't compete with those people on the outing, and the money, and whatever, so I need an excuse to be like, "Oh, he's a doctor, he's studying." - At least in your own mind, you couldn't compete.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always felt as less, because I didn't have any girlfriends in school. I had it very late in life. Everything to me came to life, so I always felt, even stand-up comedy, it came very late to me in life. So I always feel that I'm not good enough.

I feel that I didn't spend the time to build the foundation that other comedians do, so I always feel that I am too lucky. I always feel that this is a fleeting thing. And when I went, had the height and the fall in Egypt, when I went like, the top of everything, I was like, so famous, and then everything was taken away from me.

That's like, "Ah, you see? "I told you, that happens when you don't build foundation, "you fall." So I always feel that I am not good enough, or if I am in a position where people think I am, deep inside, I am not. You know that I have a speech impediment that I was not meant to be a TV presenter.

I have an, in Arabic, it's very obvious. I cannot roll my R's. I cannot say, "Er," I cannot roll it. So in Arabic, like Spanish, it's very obvious. So when I did my first video on the internet that made me famous, and then I got my television deal back there in Egypt, my partner at the time, he took the video, and he went to a producer and said like, "Are you giving me a guy with a lisp?" He couldn't, he should, that's why when I came on television, I was the first ever guy with a lisp.

I had two things going for me, the lisp and the big nose. And I was always bullied for these two all the time, so I always felt less. - See, but that's the foundation of like, creating a great person. - Yeah. - Because if you're pretty, you don't need to do much.

- I probably wouldn't recommend it, but it is true that-- - So if you are pretty, do some disfigurement. - Find the flaws and be extremely self-critical about them. So you saw Jon Stewart on TV for the first time in 2003, I believe. How did that change your life?

- I was in a gym and I was running on the treadmill. And at that time, CNN was coming out on cable. And I was watching and there is this studio, I don't know what it is. So I put the earphones on and I started watching. And I was so taken by this that I stopped the treadmill and I just like stood for the 20 minutes like this on the treadmill and I just like standing there.

I didn't know what he was saying. I didn't understand what is Democrats, what is Republicans, those names that he's saying, what is Fox News, I don't understand. But I was fascinated. There was something, you know when you don't understand the music but you get the rhythm? It was that.

- I wonder what that is that you saw. It's like the timing of the humor. I mean, Jon Stewart is one of a kind. His biting criticism of power, I would say, and also ability to highlight the absurdity of it all. - But you understand, I didn't understand any of that.

But I didn't understand any of the references. But it is the rhythm, the rhythm. You know sometimes when you even see like a comedy, that's a language you don't understand, but there's a rhythm, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. Boom, boom, there's something, there's something in the music. So there's something with the videos and the pictures and he and the face and people reacting.

- Yeah. - What is this? (laughing) What is this? - Yeah, yeah. - What is this? And we had the global edition. So I went to their YouTube and I just like started to kind of like watch every single episode that I can. I said like, "Do you think we can have this in Egypt?" I said, "Nah, never." And then 2011, like I had a friend of mine who was also a YouTube partner, it was something new at the time.

He said like, "Let's do something on the internet. "Let's do something." I said, "I wanna do with Jon Stewart." He's like, "No, no, no, no, do Ray William Johnson. "Jon Stewart will not work." I was like, "Ah, I want to do Jon Stewart." - So that was in there.

- Yeah, it was in there. And I did it and it worked. - Can you talk about 2011? I mean, what is it, the Arab Spring? What is it? People here in America, you know. (laughing) - Depends on which side-- - Did something happen or what? - Depends which side of the equation you are because for a lot of people, it's a conspiracy.

It's American-made. It is the Muslim Brotherhood, it's the Islamists, it is Israel, it is everything else other than people. Oh, but it's a pure revolution, it's a pure... I think we put too much weight on conspiracies. I think it is normal human behavior that then become, get maybe used or abused or taken advantage of by other powers and then the conspiracy starts.

But at the time, the Arab Spring didn't start in Egypt. It started in Tunisia. Bouazizi, a fruit vendor, burned himself up like the American soldiers who did that a few days ago. And that kind of sparked protests in Tunisia. And Ben Ali was a dictator in Tunisia for about like 20 years and they removed him.

So suddenly, it was kind of like a domino effect. So then Egypt started and it just took 18 days. And you know, people, hindsight is 20/20, since like Mubarak became like a burden on the military, because the military are the real rulers of the country. You might have a president that kind of like have certain powers, but at the end of the day, when the military sees that a certain president is like too much of a burden, too much of like a, you know, so they cut him off.

- And Mubarak is the leader of Egypt at that time. - He was there for 30 years. - 30 years. By the way, speaking of which, 'cause it was a joke in your Mark Twain speech. I got teary-eyed just watching that. That was just great. You're like fucking great.

Like what you did doing Mark Twain awards for Jon Stewart, it's great. I mean, your comedy is great in general. And I wanted to go to your show, I definitely will. But that's like a little stroll in the complete tangent of just the masterful introduction and celebration of Jon Stewart.

Anyway, Mubarak. - Yeah, so it's a joke that I say also, like Mubarak was a president for 30 years. Like, oh my God, you had a president for 30 years? Like it's the Middle East, it's a very short first term. It's like, we're still warming up, baby. - Just warming up.

- And I thought of like, we need to plan ahead. We need to plan our vacations, our careers, our jail time. It's just like, we need to. (laughing) - That's great. - So. - That's true. - So we had kind of like the shortest, nicest revolution, 18 days. And we thought, oh, 18 days, we can change the country in 18 days.

So, but of course, we were naive and we had this kind of hope. So Mubarak was removed. It was an interim period by the military, took it for one year. Then they did elections, Muslim Brotherhood came to power. They stayed for one year and then the military removed them.

And in these three years, my show started. It started by kind of like a YouTube video. - It became famous overnight. - Overnight. Five to six videos, boom, went out. And at that time, I was waiting to get my clearance to go to Cleveland. I was accepted in a fellowship as a pediatric heart surgery in a hospital in Cleveland.

And I said, all right, I'm just gonna do a couple of videos. Maybe I'm gonna put it on the internet. And maybe after a year or two, after I come back from the fellowship, somebody will come, hey, why don't you write a show that looks like John Stewart? That was my main.

Took five weeks. I had my first contract of television. And overnight, the exposure. And over the next two, three years, I had 30 to 40 million people watching every episode. A lot of people are like, wow, that's too much. That is terrifying. - Yeah. - Because it means that there are 30 million people who have an opinion about you.

- Yeah. You said there's a lot of aspects of that sudden fame that were just horrible. - It's toxic. It's toxic. It's unnatural. It's unnatural. When people started to recognize me in the street and take pictures, I was awkward. Like, why do you wanna have a picture with me?

Why? Is it because I didn't feel that I'm worthy enough to be like a reward for someone to have a picture? And I didn't understand it. I was actually, I was kind of an ass sometimes because people thought it was arrogance. No, it was confusion. And I remember, like, my director and my producers and people around, they always saw me in a very bad mood.

It's like, why are you not enjoying this? It's like, because this is not natural. This is not natural. This adoration, this love, and this have to end somehow. And it did. And because at a certain point, you are human. And people kind of, the adoration and the fun and the love comes because they see you saying stuff because you do your job, basically.

Political satire is basically us making fun of politicians in the media. And a lot of people have a lot of really strong opinions about politicians in the media. So we came that, we articulate that, and we give it to them and we make them laugh. So for them, we made a great job.

So why don't you do more? But you are limited. And at a certain time, you can't. And at a certain time, you're afraid because we're humans. Because you're afraid about, like, if I continue speaking up, not like something will happen to me. I'm kind of like, maybe have some protection because people see me.

But what are the people around you? - Mm-hmm. - And I've seen that. So that's why at a certain point, it's like, that's it. I can't. - I mean, there's a lot of things to say there, but one of the difficult things of fame in your situation is you're not just having fun, you're criticizing power.

- Yeah, and it is loved by the people, but it comes with a price because at a certain, if the power is too strong and you are not into a situation or a system that allows that, that gives you that kind of safety. - So what happened? (laughing) - What happened, I was, so when, so the height of my fame, when the Muslim Brotherhood was in power, and at that time, they had their media, and I had one show.

I had like one hour per week, and they had five channels, 24/7, and they were like, you know, Jon Stewart said it beautifully once. It's like, we say shit and you say shit, and we just say shit better than you. (laughing) This is exactly what Jon Stewart was like.

We're just better, we're real better at saying shit back and forth. - Yeah. - So basically, I had one hour, and they had like the five thing that they were like, you know, they're calling me all kinds of names, not just me, like all their enemies, you know, and then I just had one hour, and I would kind of like annihilate them in one hour a week.

So at a certain point, they would even like kind of be side with the army against the kind of, the liberal sectors, whatever you call it, and at a certain point, the army kind of like flipped everybody. - What do you mean? - Like kind of like they made, they removed the Muslim Brotherhood, they came to power, and we, I have to say, I admit it, I supported that in the beginning because I had daily threats, I was actually interrogated and arrested under the Muslim Brotherhood.

I was in an interrogation for six hours, and they were asking about my jokes, and I used that in my stand-up comedy, describing exactly what happened in the six hours, and it is so funny. (laughing) - Okay, well, it's hilarious. (laughing) It's slowed down. You were interrogated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

- The general prosecutor, the general prosecutor, and it was based because of complaints by the officials in the government because in order for the general prosecutor to do it, it has to have a high-up mandate to bring that person to questioning. - So they went through kind of official channels?

- Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. - So it's all-- - Yeah, it was official. It was legal. - Very legal. - So I went there and I asked, and it's kind of like a bunch of like insulting Islam, insulting presidents, spreading false rumors, and I went there and it was funny because I go into the building where there's police officers and their judges, and all of them are big fans of the show.

(laughing) And some of them were taking pictures of me, and then I'm sitting there and it was the most ridiculous interview ever because he was asking me about my jokes. It's like, "What did you mean by this joke?" And it's like, "Nothing." (laughing) It was there for six hours.

- He's just reading your jokes back to you. - He was reading my joke, and he's reading the jokes, and the junior judge is sitting there like cracking up. It's like, "I remember that." It's like, "Guys, guys!" - That's dark. - It's kind of like, and I'm laughing, but in the same time, it's like the whole situation is ridiculous.

But then at the end, I was released on bail, so I went back to my show, and I make fun of that. And you have to be honest, the Muslim Brotherhood were in power, but Egypt were like right out of the revolution for there was kind of like an equal spread of power between the people.

There was not like someone would come in and just like, the Muslim Brotherhood didn't have that power yet, but they were kind of, people saw that they were moving towards that. And then the tension rose, and then there was like a kind of a confrontation between them and the army, and then a lot of people were killed in the street.

It was terrible massacre. And then suddenly, I am blamed for all of that. It's like, "You made fun of us, "so now it made it easier for people to kill us." Like, "Dude, come on, you're doing that to me too. "I just did it better than you." And the fact that you sided with the same people that flipped against you, that's not my fault.

- Did you criticize the army at all? - Yeah, so after that show, I did like one episode against the army, and I was canceled the next day. And then I went to another channel, did 16 episodes in a different season, and it was like, I was walking on eggshells.

And then that was canceled again. And then the production company that was doing my show, that we severed ties because we didn't have the show. They had their offices raided. They have people having death threats. So I woke up one day, 11th of November, 2014, and my lawyer said, "Leave the country right now.

"There is this legal case that they're coming for you." But I said, "It was an arbitration case, "and I lost against the channel that basically canceled me." And I said, "But there's no jail time in arbitration." I was like, "Yeah, tell that to the judges, leave." So I jumped on a plane.

The verdict was 12 noon, 11th November, 5 afternoon. I was on a plane, left Egypt, and I never came back since then. - Was there a worry of non-legal things like assassination? - I can tell you something. I was so stressed because of the show, because of everything. I sometimes, I would wake up in the morning, and I hope that a bullet will come and finish everything because I was so stressed.

It's like, I would love, because I'm too much of a chicken to kill myself, so I would rather have someone else do it for me. So I was under so much pressure, and I remember the day that my show was canceled indefinitely, the second time, under the army. And I was like, (sighs) I don't have to worry about what kind of script I have to write next week.

Because this is, you know, I remember when you asked me about that tweet, but all of those, this accusation doesn't bother me. Infidel spy, a secret Jew, Zionist, Islamo-Nazi, that's bullshit. What is really, what really leaves a mark is the criticism to your craft and your work. So if you're not funny, it goes deeper.

- Yeah, certain things get to you better than others, especially if you have a secret suspicion that you are maybe not funny. - Maybe I'm not, because I was put into that, because that toasts to your insecurities. Like, I know, but you shouldn't say it out loud. (laughing) - You shouldn't say the truth out loud.

- You shouldn't say it out loud. Like, give it to yourself. (laughing) - But what about the weight of the responsibility of speaking truth to power? So like walking on eggshells, what did that feel like? - Well, after the Muslim Brotherhood were removed, you have to understand, like when the military coup happened, it was a very popular coup.

Like, people loved the army. In Egypt, the army is more sacred than the religion. People love the army, but the army can go on and on. So me going against the army was, I mean, the Muslim Brotherhood was not very popular. They were popular for their own basis. But people accepted the fact that we make fun of them.

But Sisi, at that time, he was a god. And I used to go to this high-class club called Gizira Club. And this is basically kind of like the, kind of upper-middle-class, upper-class kind of people. And during that year of the Muslim Brotherhood, I was the most popular ever. People come, yeah!

When the military came in, people were walking to me, like pointing their fingers, like, "Don't speak about Sisi, don't speak about the army, huh? "We love you now, but don't you," they were like that. So I called John Stewart, I was like, "I don't know what to do." I don't know what to do.

And at that time, all of the channels were closed down, all of the independent, I was the only one left because it was difficult for them to get rid of me very quickly because I was too popular. It was kind of like piecemealing, kind of like going. And I remember, I was like, "I don't know what to do." He said, "You don't have to do anything, "just your safety comes first." And I said, "But I can't, I mean, "I've been doing that for two years "and I cannot just like say, bye-bye, guys.

"I have a responsibility, I have a team, "I have people working for me. "And I also, I cannot just like disappear." And he said the most interesting thing ever, and say, "If you're afraid of something, "make fun about the fact that you're afraid of it "instead of talking about that something." - Yeah.

- So there was like a whole episode that we did not even mention Cici. We did not even mention him, but the videos did all the thing. And the whole episode was me trying to avoid talking about him. And that how the comedy was created. The fact that I don't wanna be here, and I don't know, so he said like, "If you will be surprised how people can relate to that," because there was a lot of kind of like, "Oh, we love him, but we feel we cannot speak." So just by doing the simple thing about mirroring the society, that goes a long way.

And I kind of tried to do what I can under the military. I mean, they came up with (laughs) a machine that treats AIDS and hepatitis C virus, and basically every single, and I went to town with that. Because people think it doesn't really have to go to the bigger posts, like, "You're an asshole." No, you talk about their propaganda.

You talk about what they want people to perceive them at. And it's a failure. And for that, that kind of hit them even more. Because what do authoritarian figures do? They work on two things, fear and propaganda. And from that, it gets the respect. So when you go into their propaganda and expose them, they have nothing else.

- That's brilliant. Like, you are walking on eggshells, but you're doing it masterfully. That you're revealing sort of the flaws in the propaganda, the absurdity of the propaganda, and in so doing, you're criticizing them. - And this is why comedy is very specific. Because people say, "You were not as hard on him "as you were on the Muslim Brotherhood." It's like, "Yes, because on the Muslim Brotherhood, "we were just like saying shit to each other." But now, the ceiling was like here.

So it's kind of like, how can you do something from here? - Yeah, exactly. That's the art form. - Yeah, and in the Soviet Union, under Stalin, a lot of the criticism came from like children stories and children's cartoons. - Double meaning, double in the window stuff. That means other stuff.

That is the brilliance. - But everyone knows. - Everyone knows. - Because you are like putting a mirror. You're mirroring the society. It's fascinating, actually. - And that's why I was canceled twice. (laughing) - And that is a scary one. The army, you see that in Ukraine. Everybody supports the army.

That's why Zelensky getting rid of the head of the army was a big, big deal. It's a really dangerous thing. 'Cause everyone's afraid to say anything negative about the army, especially during war, in that case. And in this case, maybe there's civil war, that kind of thing. - But think about it.

Actually, an army during peace is much more dangerous. Because think about it. I don't really have an enemy to fight, but I have all of this power, all of this tank. Why does this actor have more money than me? I'm protecting him. Why does this businessman think that he can get on his private plane and go to Paris?

And why I'm here sitting, not having all of these things? And there's a lot of time on your hand, because your job is to go fight. When you don't go fight, and when you have the lack of, that's one of the things I love the United States about, is the fact that the army cannot really get power, but the kind of like, the army is, the power is actually in the military industrial complex, which is a different thing.

- Yeah. (laughing) - It's kind of like a different kind of issue. But if you have all of that power, like why am I sitting around just like playing guard for you guys? - That's why Iran is terrifying, 'cause you have this military that just becomes a police force that turns against its own people.

- Yeah. - So you're, you're a famous guy talking shit in the middle of all that. - Yeah, and I, when I left, I went through a very dark side, dark, dark, dark, because all of the insecurities, all of the stuff that had been like working on my head now came to life, and now I'm in America, and I'm a nobody, I'm a nobody.

And now it's like, I have to do something, I have to earn some money. So I started to do stand-up comedy five years ago. And I sucked, because it was my second language, and it was new, and now I will go to these comedy clubs with like kids, and 21, 22 people, and then I'm there with a family to support that.

I'm going there to do it for $15, $20, and I was bad. I was bad. - You're bombing. - Bombing big time. - Eating shit. - Eating big time, dying up there big time. And I would go back home and I would cry. And then what made it worse is sometimes, like a fan, like not a fan, a bunch of fans from Egypt.

It's like, oh, Bassem Youssef, you know that? They come, it's like. (laughing) - Yeah, just start. - Disappointments on their, that kind of, like face of adoration that goes. (laughing) And I could see it in their face. I think he's gonna drive an Uber in a couple of weeks.

(laughing) That's, that kind of pressure. And I would go and I would cry, and then essentially, oh, you left, you gave up, you're a sellout, you're a coward, why don't you speak from abroad? You're safe now. It's like, I don't, I already spoke. I don't want to be, 'cause I don't wanna be an activist.

I was doing that for comedy when it was good for everybody, but now they want me to go into YouTube and just like throw rocks from outside. And it's like, you know what, I understand, I have family there. (laughing) And it was this kind of like thing like that, I am being like attacked for not doing what I should do in their face, and attacked for not being funny, and not doing good, and now I'm a fan, like maybe it was wrong, and I was, I didn't know, I really, it was so traumatic that I don't know actually how I went through these years, and I blocked so many details from my brain, because I have been using this technique for a while now that I have been erasing a lot of my, there is a lot of memory gaps in my brain, and I'm trying to suppress it because it was very, very, very traumatic.

And a lot of people told me you have to go to therapy, but I don't, I can't, I don't know, I'm worried to open the floodgates, and I'm thinking as if I'm functional, and I'm not killing anybody, I'm okay. (laughing) - It's like, I think Elon tweeted never went to therapy, it's gonna be on my headstone.

- Yeah. (sighing) (laughing) - Two of your best buds, okay. - I mean, that is terrifyingly difficult, like, after being a surgeon, after being a superstar, super famous, going to eat shit at local tiny clubs in the United States, I mean, eating shit, period. - Yeah. - Like, bombing is really, really, really difficult, really difficult for 20-year-olds.

(sighing) (laughing) - Imagine when you're 45, 46, and then people's like, is this his midlife crisis? What is this? (laughing) I went through a lot of pain and a lot of doubts, and it was terrible. - Wait, I mean, how did you survive? I know you brought up most of it, but what gave you strength through all that?

- Because I didn't have any other choice, because I started that, and the only reason that I could is to continue. I don't know what else to do. I don't wanna go back to medicine. I don't wanna go, I don't want to do that. And I don't know, I was, and bit by bit, bit by bit, I started to kind of like, be better, be better, be better.

And I was, at a certain time, a year ago, a year ago, this is where I started to kind of like hone the craft and kind of sell more tickets, and sometimes even sell out some shows, and sometimes sell a theater. So like, it was going, and the money was flowing, and it was good.

And then I was like, why didn't, I wanted faster, I wanted more, I want it now, I want Netflix deal, or whatever. And then the Piers Morgan thing happened, and then I blew up, and then suddenly I'm selling out everywhere. And it's like, ah, if those people came, if the war happened two years ago, I will not be ready.

So now they come to the show, and by the way, my show had nothing to do with the October 7th. My show is my thing that I've been crafting and working on. You know how difficult it is to do the first hour, the hour that I've been working on for five years, and it's all my personal story.

All about like what happened to me as an immigrant coming here to the United States, finding Trump as a president, finding myself in the middle of a gun rally, finding myself in the middle of a bombing, kind of like talking about how I got my citizenship. It's all like funny stories about like my origin story.

So they come in, and they expect October 7th, and all those things are my personal story. But it's good, and it kills, and they love it. It's like, if that kind of like blew up in America, happened to me two, three years ago, I would not have people who come and be disappointed.

- I gotta say, the timing of October 7th is very suspicious. - Oh my God, please don't say that. - I don't know. I'm just asking questions. I don't know. - I'm telling you, one of the funniest thing, a guy, I was in Dubai, and like a TV anchor came to me.

"Basim Youssef, he flourishes during revolutions and wars." Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what, what, what? Dude! (laughing) You're making me sound like a bad omen, a very bad omen. (laughing) - Yeah, you, Hamas, and Bibi together orchestrated all this. - Oh my God, that's the trilogy. (laughing) - You guys should go on the road together.

Telling you, that phone call is coming. - Yeah, but Hamas has to open. (laughing) - And they would really bomb, right? - They would really bomb. (laughing) - I love dark humor. You do a show, like you were saying, in English and in Arabic. So, and the story is very different.

- Totally different, two different stories. - I would love to, just the language difference. Because it's the music of the language is also different. So like, what's, how can you convert it into words? But what's the difference in the music of the languages? I'll tell you. 'Cause I thought about that a lot.

(laughing) So, when I was doing the English first, I was, I actually had good jokes. But I was missing the delivery. Because the cadence, and the music, and the rhythm is different. The way that an English-speaking American member of audience will receive it, it will be different than how I receive it.

The energy, everything's different. So, when I kind of like got it, I didn't know how to switch back to Arabic. - Oh wow, yeah, fascinating. - Because here's the thing, with English stand-up comedy, English stand-up, you have a huge library. You have like a legacy. You have like years, and years, and years, and years of people doing comedy.

But in Arabic, it's very new to us. And most of the Arabic stand-up comedy, especially in Egypt, is very tamed. This is kind of like, imagine the stand-up comedy scene in the American 1960s before Lenny Bruce. - Oh, so no swearing, conservative, careful. - No swearing, nothing conservative, everything kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like very.

So, I didn't know what to do with Arabic. So, I broke the barriers. I became Lenny Bruce, I became George Carlin. So, I went in, and I went, and I changed the whole thing. - The seven words you're not allowed to say, whatever. - For me, they're 15 words.

- How? (laughing) There's a lot, there's a lot. - Arabic is a very rich language. - Yeah. - So, when I did, here's the difference between the Arabic and the English show. The English show, surprise, surprise, is a unifying language, even for a group of Arabs. So, if I give the same exact show to the same 1,000 audience members in the same theater, and they're the same people, same makeup of Lebanese, Egyptian, Syrian, Saudis, English will be a unifying language.

Arabic is a dividing language. - Why is that? - Because you have 22 dialects, and the dialects are vastly different. And maybe Egyptians understand a little bit of Lebanese, but not that much, but the references, Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian, totally different animal. That's like a totally different language. Saudi, Emirati, Kuwaiti, totally different.

People understand the Egyptian dialect because it's the dialect of most of the artwork and the movies, but the reference in the everyday street talk might not be understood by them. So, now I have to go in and talk to all of these dialects together. So, I formed my, big part of my show is like, what are you guys expecting of this?

This is what, this is, we gonna, when I go do profanity and you're gonna like it, this is the problem with the show as a dialect, and I construct all of these sentences formed of so different, different words. For example, an iron. In any, in any, in any Arabic dialect is an iron.

In Saudi Arabia, it means ass. That's one example. That's one example, you know? So, imagine if you can actually construct sentences having all of these things in one sentence. So, I would construct like a whole section of my show about that. - So, it's really very much about self-reflective on language and the limits of language that's allowed.

- And the limits of language, and I tell them, part of the show is like, I know what's the problem with me doing Arabic. It's like, if this was an English show and I was telling you, "Fuck and shit, "I bet you'll be ha, ha, ha, ha, ha," but if I do one swear word, all of you will scrimp.

- Yeah. - It's like, why? Is it because we are ashamed of our own language? So, it's kind of like, it's not just about swearing. It's about, there's a lot of philosophical pathways in this. Yeah, there's profanity, and people have fun, whatever, but it is about, how do we treat our language?

And I tell them, we speak Arabic as Arabs, but it's not the same Arabic. It's crazy, right? - And you're doing the show in America also, which is another level of obscurity. - Oh, yeah. Actually, the Arab diaspora in America is some of the best audiences I have. They are like wonderful, and they come from, and I did it also in the Middle East, and maybe I'll do like an Arab tour in the Middle East in the fall.

- Which countries would you go to and not? - I worried, Jordan, Lebanon, I'm doing UAE, I'm doing Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain. Egypt, I don't think so. I don't think so. - Is it personal? Is it worry about your safety? - Well, I have the American citizenship right now, so I am relatively safe.

There's a block. - Sure. - Honestly, there's a block. There's so much that happens, and I will never badmouth Egypt. It is my country. It has all of my marriage, 40 years of my life I lived there. But when you get hurt so much, instead of trying to kind of, I don't wanna take revenge, I don't wanna like that, I just want to avoid.

Because Egypt gave me so much fame and so much love and so much hate and so much rejection. It is a very, it was a very tumulus relationship. Very, very difficult. And a lot of people tell me, well, don't you miss Egypt? And I tell them every time, the Egypt that I miss is not there anymore.

It's not bad or good. It's not worse or better. It's just, I'm different, and the places are different, and the people are different, and the circumstances are different. Whatever image that you have of what you love is not there anymore. That's why a lot of immigrants, especially Arab immigrants, they live here, but they're there.

And then when they go back for a vacation, they get disappointed because they didn't find what they want. And then they come back here and they're disappointed because this is what they wanna come back, but it's not there anymore. - Yeah, their view of that place is from a different time.

I have that, you know, my parents, but everybody that left the Soviet Union, I mean, it's such a complicated relationship with that. It's sometimes borders on hate, disappointment. In the case of the Soviet Union, perhaps similar to Egypt, is the promises sold when you were younger, and the promises broken by the possibility of what it was supposed to be.

With the Soviet Union, I'm sure with Egypt is the same. Iran is the same. So they have a very complicated relationship with that. - Yeah, that's why, like, for example, people from Iran, I remember quite well the World Cup that was made in the United States, and the Iranian team were playing America, and there were people in the audience all wearing Iranian, they hate the regime, but they have this kind of connection with the country.

And this is the whole thing. You can actually love the country, and you don't have to agree with the regime. - Would you ever perform in the West Bank? - No. - Gaza. - Because if I go there, I have to go to the Israeli checkpoints, and I don't wanna go through this.

I don't want to have an Israeli soldier telling me what to do. - Yeah, there's a demeaning aspect to that whole-- - Very. - Even in subtle ways, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have so many Palestinian friends with an American passport, U.S. passport, living here. They are born here.

And they talk about the humiliation, and the intimidation, and the harassment that they go in. It's like, do you want me to try? (laughs) - Yeah, that little bit of a humiliation. A little bit. (imitates gunshot) - Well, sometimes it's major, but-- - I know, I know. - I notice that even the little bit has, after a lifetime of that, it can turn to hate towards the other.

- Yeah, and resentment. - Resentment, and then how do you do anything with that resentment? - I have a friend of mine. He is from Palestine, from the West Bank. He's American here, he's born here. And we talk about, you know, we have, of course, all of this discussion about what happened.

And he tells me, you know, in October 11th, in the West Bank, and there was a village called Kosra. And on that village, like, the settlers went in around the village, and they sent a message on Facebook. It's like, you rats, get out of your sewers, and we're gonna be waiting for you.

Intimidation through technology. And then they went, it is, Kosra have like another settlement next to it called the Eshkodesh. Eshkodesh, they have people there who were training something called Mishmereti Yisha, which is basically the guardians of Yisha. And it's like a paramilitary group that trains other settlers on military combat.

Give them weapons and do like military drills. And they went there like militarized, and went there. And it was actually co-founded by a Jew from Brooklyn. Not even, and like an Israeli. And he is like one of the disciples of Meir Kahane. I'm sure that you know who Meir Kahane is, who was the Jewish defense lead, the people who assassinated Alex Aouda here in the United States.

And they were there with their weapons outside intimidating people. Now, this story carries everything that is wrong with the situation. You have people from Brooklyn, from outside, just because they're Jewish, they can't come, and they can claim the land from the people there. Anybody from Poland, just because he's Jewish, you can come and take the land from other people.

They're using technology to intimidate Palestinians. They have unchecked military power. These are not IDF soldiers. These are settlers, and they have free reign in order to intimidate and to kill the people. And you understand, this is the daily life of Palestinians. Not in Gaza, in the West Bank. - What do you do from your, what do we do, what do people do to nudge this towards peace, towards flourishing?

- Here's the thing. I wanna talk to the people of Israel. What is Israel doing right now is not just unfair to the Palestinians, it's unfair to the Jewish people in Israel. No, it is unfair to the Jewish people around the world. Because the way that Israel links itself to Judaism, at a certain point, you know, remember like ISIS and Qaeda and when everybody hated Muslims?

You know, sometimes, humans are simple. They cannot have the nuances to separate. So, anybody who, with a Muslim name, with a Muslim face, with a beard, who looks Muslim, he would do it because of that actions of those atrocities. You have the power, as a person, to separate yourself from an abusive power, a horrible power, and be yourself.

I am really worried because the rise of anti-Semitism and the rise of hate against Jews is not because of the Jews. It's because of the actions of the government. Jews do not have to be on the side of apartheid. Ronnie Kestrels, he is a Jewish South African and he fought shoulder to shoulder next to Nelson Mandela.

He was part of the African National Conference, ANC. And he had an article saying like, "I know what apartheid is and I saw Israel "and this is what they have." And the thing is, Israeli government should listen to other people. You cannot call anybody who criticize you either an anti-Semite or if they're already Jewish, you call them like self-hating Jew.

You cannot do that. You cannot continue doing that. Because we did that. When I would go in and criticize the Islamists, it was like, "Oh, you're a self-hating Muslim. "You're not really Muslim. "You're an infidel, you're a secret, "you're a secular," or whatever. We have the power in order to reform the course by holding people in power accountable.

And the thing is, it is very stupid to actually call this anti-Semitism. And like, my idol is Jon Stewart. I voted for Bernie Sanders. Sarah Taxler, the one who did this amazing documentary about me, "Tickling Giants," she's a Jew. She is married to an Israeli Jew. We have a good ratio because we know what the right is.

They don't have to associate themselves with the action of the Israeli government. - One of your favorite words, "jihad." (laughing) - That's my favorite hobbies. - It's his favorite hobby. - It's my show. It's like, what's his favorite? I talk about how when a white shooter does something, he talks about all of his family and all his hobbies.

Like, what if we did this for Arab terrorists? What are his hobbies? Jihad. (laughing) - You see? You could be a comedian! - Yeah. Wow, you're making me feel good. Okay. Sam Harris has done several episodes on jihad. And people should go listen to it, even if you disagree with it.

But the basic idea that he's proposing is that this idea of jihad, in the negative connotation of it, of martyrdom is a thing that gets, is counterproductive, is destructive to the possible future flourishing of Palestinian people. What do you think of that? There's just the idea of martyrdom. - Yeah, I totally agree, but people don't wake up in the morning and say, "I wanna declare jihad." Think about it.

Why would anybody choose to end his life by taking other people with him and end that life? His life must be miserable. He must be pushed into that. Nobody chooses death over life willingly. One of the first suicide bombers in the Palestinian resistance were Christians. We don't talk about that.

I think he would say that the presence of a story that you can tell yourself when you're in a really shitty place, that you can go to a much better place by sacrificing your own life. Just the fact that the presence of that story is there is harmful. - Of course, but here's my problem with Sam Harris, and usually people, they have free range talking about the Islamic faith and nitpicking the stuff that makes it put in a bad light.

I can go and nitpick every single religion. There are Jews there, like Bin Ghafir, who openly says spitting on Christians is not a hate speech, all right? They are, I mean, you can bring me all kinds of videos of Islamic jihadists saying horrible things on YouTube, and I can bring you Jews who live there.

They are like, "We're gonna have the whole world "enslaved for us, and everybody would love "to be enslaved for the Jews." I can use the Talmudic argument that if you tie a man to a tree and he dies of thirst and hunger, you didn't kill that man. And this is kind of the same arguments, like, "Ah, we're not killing Palestinians.

"It's just like killing, they're dying by themselves." So it is, the nitpicking of a certain narrative, religious narrative, that is separate from the political context and what's happening right now, it's very unfair, because I can read, if you wanna have a deep dive into religious texts, nobody will be happy, and I can bring stuff from the Talmud and the Torah and stuff that is horrible, but this is a way, again, of distraction.

- I dare you to talk shit about Buddhism and Jainism, though. Try. - Well, you know, the people who killed the Muslims in Myanmar, weren't they Buddhist? - Yeah, well, let's go, Jaden. Okay, I'll find the religion, I'll get to get back to you. I'll have to find it.

- Yeah, the Flying Monster, the Church of the Flying Monster Spaghetti. - The Flying Monster. (laughs) As a person who tries not to eat carbs, I'm deeply offended by that. - I mean, they're Scientologists, all they do is actually buy real estate. (laughing) - I think there's a few books written about the fact that they do other stuff as well.

So even there, Mormons sometimes, they're some of the nicest people I've ever met, but I'm sure there's also darkness there, too. Oh, boy, religion. - There's soaking in Mormon. - There's what? - Soaking. - What's soaking? - Okay, so I don't know how much. So soaking, basically, if you get into the woman and you don't move, that's not adultery, that's not like-- - Oh, interesting.

So there's a loophole. - Yeah, you go in and you just take. - There's a loophole. - There's a loophole. - That's the thing. Religion has a loophole. - Religion has a loophole. - Yes, and Muslims, we do that the whole time. We pick and choose our sins, the stuff that we enjoy.

It's just, where are you? - There's 72 versions waiting for all of us. Maybe if I converted you as a Jew, I'll get you 80. I don't know, you can negotiate. - But I also have questions about whether-- - That would be a very good deal. And maybe I'll throw there a Camry.

- I have to be honest, Camry, it's pretty good. What year? I don't know. - 1998, best year ever. - Well, they last a long time, so. I'm not sure I want 70, I need to-- - I'll throw five in the mix and see how it feels. - Yeah, can we-- - Upgrade?

- Yeah, can we do a trial period? - But in general, if you just zoom out, do you think religion is, in what way is it good for the world, and in what way is it harmful? - If there was no religion, humans would have invented religion. Because think about it, think of the early humanity.

You're a caveman or whatever, and then you see your family members killed, and then you say, what, I'm gonna be the sheet or the gazelle that just ends and perish? I need to have, I am more important. I think with the development of consciousness, humans thought that they are much more precious and important than the other animals, because they have now intelligence.

So my life will not end like that. My death will be even more important. There's consequences for that. There's consequences for what I do. And then the early man was there in the desert and all of these natural phenomena. They didn't know what to do, they were afraid. So they need to have refuge.

They need to have something to take care of. They need to have a reason for everything. Because if there's no reason, it's chaos. It's chaos. - It's terrifying. - It's terrifying, it's terrifying. There's nothing, there has to be a reason. There has to be a reason, there has to be a purpose.

It has to be a cause, something. It's just, I'm not just gonna be like die, like a cockroach being stepped on. And that's kind of like part of this ego. - The whole world rotates around you in a way. - It's the ego. So religion actually got a lot of it from humanity itself, like me, us, like us being humans.

And there's, and many religion is a collection of stories. And those stories based on things that humans did themselves and they attributed it to gods. - And there's an aspect to religion where you humble yourself before a thing that is much greater than you. So that has a, I would say, a very positive effect of humbling.

- It will be great if it's stopped there. But here's the thing, if you humble in order that your ego kicks in and feel that you are better than someone else who's not humbled in front of the same god, that means that I will have all of that train that I can use that, because now, what does it mean being humble?

I'm divine, but you're not. - I'm way more humble than you. - But you're not. So you see how they kind of like the oxymoron, I'm humble and I'm surrendering, but in the same time, I am better than you and I'm more entitled. Isn't it crazy? - Yeah, it's beautiful, it's crazy.

- I mean, look at like the Muslim Christians and Jews and every, like you say, all right, Muslims, we surrender. I mean, I'm talking about the extreme ones. I mean, like people say, I surrender to God, good. Keep it that way. Like, if you go there, I surrender to God, that means that I am closer to God than you, then you should die!

Okay, Christians. Christ is love and he loves me and we're gonna be together, but you don't get into his kingdom and you die. You see, it's the same thing. - Yeah, yeah. - It's just, if you-- - Stop it. - Stop there, stop where you are humble and you feel that you're a piece of shit and you are worthless human being and you are there, stop there.

But once you say like, oh, that makes me a better person than you and it makes me more with God than you, so that will give me the entitlement to kick your ass. - Yeah, we always ruin a good thing. - Don't we? (laughing) - That ego. You've been outspoken, you know, with Piers Morgan, but just on this topic, and you talked about the Superman story, which I would love it if you were in a Superman movie, but have you lost job opportunities because of this?

- There was other, a couple of things that were going on, but they stopped, again, I don't know if it's October 7th. - Can you tell the Superman story just so-- - Yeah, yeah, so-- - What role were you? - Okay. - What did you audition for? - Yeah, it's, okay, okay, all right, all right, okay.

(laughing) So in June, I was traveling to Dubai, and right, an hour before I get into the car and go there, my manager's like, "Bes, I'm gonna send you a script, "read it, it's for Superman." It's like, oh, Superman. You know, I'm not really good in auditions, I'm not a seasoned actress, so I was like, "Okay, I'm just gonna do it, send the tape." I do the tape, I send it, I go to the airport, and I read, and I think I can talk about it now because they said they changed the script.

So basically, what I found interesting in that new script is that there is like a dictator in a country that invades another country, and Superman interferes politically. That's the first time we ever see Superman interferes politically. So basically, it was like Russia and Ukraine, but because of me, it was like, it couldn't be Russia and Ukraine, so it had to be something kind of like with a flavor.

So I read the role as if, as a mixture of Trump and Mubarak. (laughing) I did this mix, and like, you know, like the kind of the mix, but also like kind of like the essence of Trump into it. I went to the airport. It's like an hour. It's like, James Gunn saw it, he loves it.

It's like, what? I never had an audition that fast. I mean, I had a few roles, but not that fast, not like that. And then it's like, well, the strike starts like tomorrow, and we need to be on the phone, but after the strike, we cannot talk. The sag after strike, like where the writers and the actors strike.

So like, well, I'm gonna be on a plane right now. It's like, wait, once you land, you can have a Zoom call with James Gunn. I have a call with James Gunn. I am a huge fan of him. The guy took like something like "Guardian of the Galaxy." Nobody knew about it.

Made amazing trilogy. And he is like a really cool guy. I like what he did. And it was like really nice. And he started to talk to me about the movie. And you know, like I talk to people before casting them, so I know that everybody's on set, have a good chemistry.

It was amazing. So in your mind, if you're an actor, what does that mean? You got the part. And he told me, you got the part. Month goes by, strike goes by, October 7th happens. I do "Piers Morgan" one and two. And then I go to my Australian tour.

My manager called me, asked him, the Cirque was over. It's like, you don't get the part anymore. I was sad, very sad, but for three days. And so like, I need to stand up with it, khalas. I'm actually doing very well, alhamdulillah. And then when I went to Chris Como, after I finished the show, he told me, did you lose any opportunities?

And that was off record. After the show was like, we concluded. And I said, I talked about "Superman." And I found myself, when I was talking, I was angry. I was bitter. And I went home, it's like, why was I angry? Why was I bitter? It wasn't meant to be.

And I'm living a good life now. I don't need to. So when I was asked again, the next day in two different interviews, the BBC and another one was alone with my friend, you know, with Allah. I said the story in a different way. I said, I don't have any anger.

As a matter of fact, maybe if I was "Wonder Brothers," I didn't talk about James Gunn. I thought it was the studio. If I was "Wonder Brothers" and I'm a Muslim, I wouldn't have like a Zionist or a pro-Israeli in my movie. But I want to tell them that like, when I criticize Israel, I am not a threat to you as a Jew.

And we can actually have more in common. I was more of a kind of empathic. So when I said that, the internet went crazy. And you know, James Gunn have hatreds because you know, the Snyder verse and all of the, that it's just, it's a word that I don't understand.

And James Gunn, like, had all of these attacks on him. And I was pissed of how it was handled. I wasn't angry at James Gunn, but I thought it was, so my publicist, my manager's like, Bassem, stay calm, don't speak. It's better like to, like, not talk about it.

I said, okay. So as I'm, there's nothing wrong about me, but I see the heat is rising against James Gunn. And that is a guy that I had a personal connection with, even through Zoom. And I didn't like what was happening. And then he called me. And he explained to me, I said, Bassem, you know, I actually use, like, have camera tests before people, before finally, I didn't know that.

And I, and then we changed the script and it was the strike, so I didn't call. And I also, I thought to myself, I'm small. I'm a small actor. I'm not that important for him to call me to say we're gonna change the script. So I still think that, like, the timing sucks and everything.

But then I went and I did a video explaining exactly what I'm telling you, because I didn't want to be famous for the wrong reasons. Because that would be unfair. Because that was, already people were, and I was having, like, interviews. Can you come up to someone? It's like, guys, that's it.

I'm not gonna talk about it. Because this is an issue. And I didn't, and I, when I talked to James on the phone, I felt how sincere he was. So I didn't want someone to, because of me, will have that kind of attack. Because I know what it means to be on the other side of that kind of attack.

It's terrible. And it ruins your life. And it ruins your day. And nobody deserves to be doing that. And I don't want to be the reason for someone else to go through that pain. - And you also said that you don't want to be a victim. - I don't want to be.

I'm doing a great, I'm doing great. I'm selling out everywhere. I'm having a wonderful, loyal audiences coming to me. Why I would be angry about the role of Superman? Yes, it's great to be in a superhero movies. But so what, you know? - But you know, there's a wisdom in that, even if you weren't doing great, that's a choice a lot of people can come to, which is like, do I play victim here or not?

- It's greed. It's greed. They want more attention. They want to be more into the thing. They want more and more. And there's so much to go around to be enough for all of us. But it is greed. It is ego, ego, ego, ego. I need to be in the center.

I need to be victimized. I need to be people feel sorry for me and love me. And it is not the right way. It is not because it is fake. It is fake. It's made up. And I did not victimize myself when I left for Egypt. I mean, in the time that I was, and now I speak about it now.

But in that dark times, I was detained in airports. I didn't have my American passport yet. I was still traveling with my Egyptian passport. And I was detained in an Arab airport. I was going to be delivered to the Egyptians. I had shows when I was still starting. I had hecklers being sent to me by the Egyptian embassy and Egyptian consulate in New York and in London to curse me and to take videos of that and then send it to state-run media in Egypt.

And I didn't speak about that because I felt that if I speak about that, I feel about what was going on to me, I would be victimizing myself. It's like, if I'm gonna be good, I'm gonna be good because of what I do, not because of what people's perception of what I'm going through.

- Yeah, and that becomes a slippery slope and somehow victimizing yourself-- - Goes to more victimizing. - Yeah. - And then you cannot leave that habit. You can only exist and thrive if people feel sorry for you. - Yeah, I mean, Israel and Palestine currently both have that temptation.

- I would always push back when you do the comparison because one of them is not really in the same kind of power. I mean, yeah. - For sure, for sure. So to you, that's a big problem. - I mean, it's very easy to say why Palestinians would victimize themselves, but Israel with all of that military might, man, it's too much.

What Israel is doing is that they're victimizing the Jewish experience. And I don't think it is fair for a lot of Jews. I don't think that they should use the Holocaust and the persecution that happened to Jewish people all through history in order to push an equally oppressive agenda.

That is not fair and it's not good for the Jewish people living. And it is basically a disrespect to the memory of the Holocaust. I told you, I wanna make a movie about the Holocaust. I do, because what happened was that kind of engineered torture should never happen again and it should not be happening now.

- So to you, what Israel is doing is leading to more anti-Semitism in the world. - 100%. And I think, and you know, can I be a conspiracy theorist for a second? - Please, the earth is flat. We all know this. - A part of me thinking maybe they are doing that intentionally because if there's a rise of anti-Semitism in Jews, there were always like points like, see, they hate us so we can do whatever we want.

Because you see, if we let go of our might and our strength, we're gonna go back to the concentration camps because you see how the world hates you. - And again, when you say they are people in power. - Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. Listen, it's always the people in power.

I believe that humans are easily corruptible and easily repairable, but the corrupt part is much easier. But people could change, but power, people in power are very dangerous, very, very dangerous, especially if you have religion, which is power by itself, military might, political support, and money. Dude, that's a very, very, very dangerous recipe.

- You know, all that said, I do believe in the power of the little guy, the individual, to overthrow the government. I don't know if you heard, but the Arab Spring happens. - But, okay, here, we're-- - Just among friends. - We're Americans, right? We're Americans. - Allegedly. - We're Americans.

(laughing) - How funny is that? Like, just giving our two backgrounds. We're Americans. - We're Americans. We're Americans, it's like. (laughing) We're Americans. There's one thing about the power of the little guy that I am very sad about, because, you see, I love America, by the way. I consider it my new home, and I want my kids to grow up here.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I have in the United States, and I criticize the United States politics, and I criticize it out of love, the same way that I was criticizing what's happening with Egypt out of love. What is worrying for me is how the power of the little man is diminishing.

It doesn't matter now who do you vote into power. They will not listen to you. They would listen to the people who paid them to be there, and it is very concerning, because I can see the American democracies turning, not even slowly, very rapidly into an oligarchy. If I'm sure that all of the millions of people who are voting, they don't vote for the NRA.

They don't vote for AIPAC. They don't vote for the pharmaceutical companies. They don't vote for the military-industry complex, and yet, the people in power, they come in, they take your vote and my vote, and they are loyal to those people, not to us, and it is very, very, very concerning, very concerning, and this is the danger on the American policies, on American politics and American democracies.

It is dangerous, because basically, the vote becomes just like a ceremony, that someone with the more funding will get to power, and then he's not loyal to you. - Still, the fire, I mean, we are in Texas. Everybody's armed to the teeth here. - Yeah, but what are these arms gonna do in front of tanks?

- Well, you said the American military is unique in this way. - I know, but for now? - For now, the tanks are, first of all, I believe Russia has more tanks than the United States. Tanks, I don't know, I'm not an expert in military strategic deployment of arms, but the United States uses different kinds of weapons.

- They have drones, and they have the lasers, and they're sitting comfortably behind the screens. It's kind of like it turns into a big Xbox game. - Yeah, and they sell a lot of those things to everybody. - It's crazy, because the defense budget is 68% of American military.

It's like almost $850 billion each year, and most of that weapons, we don't even need it. We just do it because of the contracts. There was like an incredible 60 minutes. I'm sure that you saw it, the one about the gouging of the prices of the Department of Defense.

It was one of the most fascinating things that I've ever seen. They say like a valve, a safety oil valve that used to be sold for $329, now it is sold for $9,000. Why, because there's only five weapon companies, and they can control the prices, and in 2006, the whole Apache fleet of the American army in Iraq was grounded because there was one valve that they were like gouging the price and didn't wanna give them.

The Stinger missile, that's just like the missile, the one that you carry, and it's like the anti-aircraft. It used to be sold for $25,000. Now it's sold for $400,000, and nobody is doing that. You know why? Because the DOD has fired 130,000 people, including engineers and negotiators. So now, in order to cut expenses, now we're paying more money.

And the thing is, we do not have a say in this. We do not have a say in how my tax money and your tax money is being spent, because I'm sure you don't want your money to be sent to Israel like that. I'm sure, even if you're Jews, I'm sure.

I'm sure that like, I don't want my money to be given to some Muslim countries who kill other Muslims, I'm sure. But it is not, here's the thing. What kind of power do we have other than speaking? So what is left for us is free speech. And now when you speak, they call you anti-Semitic.

You see why I'm angry? (laughing) - But still, I mean, America's holding pretty strong despite the criticisms on the free speech front. But if you look at the freedom of the press, freedom of the speech index, America is not at the top. - It is not, and this is why, for example, it is very disheartening for me to see that the Western media, Western press that used to be the beacon of freedom are now using as mouthpieces.

And it is funny how the New York Times, Nixon got angry in the New York Times in 1971 when they found leaks about him lying about the Vietnam War since the beginning. And now he hired the plumbers, the special units and orders to go in and find the leaks.

This was Watergate, basically, because he was angry to see who leaked that instead of fixing the problem. Now the New York Times have published this story about the rape that was a hoax that was written by Anna Schwartz, who's someone who has no experience. And now when it was leaked, instead of them correcting themselves, they went in and they had their own investigation to see who leaked.

The New York Times in 2003 became the mouthpiece for George W. Bush of the WMD. And now, as an American, I see that the New York Times is becoming a mouthpiece of a foreign country. Why do you do that? - One of the things that's really difficult to know is where to find the truth.

It does seem that both sides use propaganda and both sides lie a lot. - But both sides, as in? - Both Israel and Palestine. Pro-Palestine, pro-Israel. There's a lot of lies. - I know, but it's a lot of inequality, man. There's a lot of people on the internet, but who have the mainstream media siding with?

- Yeah, but thanks to social media. - Yes, thank God for social media, because now it's individuals. They are people. - Yes. - They are people. You're comparing BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal with just people with a TikTok account. - Yeah, who have more power, in your view?

- Now, it is actually very, very fascinating to see the little man having that power over the media. - In fact, it's proportionally so, this is my problem. - But you cannot call people with TikTok propagandists while people being paid to give you the news and they deliberately lie to you.

- Well, yes, I can. They're both propagandists. - Well, okay, yes, yes. But the mechanism and the intentions are different, because here's the thing. - I'd rather have the TikTok guy than the-- - The TikTok guy is a TikTok guy, all right? But if you have the New York Times being exposed to be lying, and then they get this UN report, which is like a disgrace, and you just put the title and you don't talk about it.

It's like, I'm fine with CNN and Jake Tapper and all of those people spreading the rape allegations for years. I don't even want them to refute them. I want them to bring the Israeli reports saying that it didn't happen. The Israeli media themselves, they didn't even bother. Not once.

Is that balanced? That's not. So that's why people in TikTok, because they have to take matters in their own hand. - Yeah, but the problem with the people in TikTok is the drug, the dopamine rush of getting a lot of likes. So instead of talking about the death of civilians, they'll talk about beheaded babies or the equivalent of, they're going to actually make up stories because the made up stories are going to be more viral.

And so now we're just in this scene, this muck of lies. - And there's a lot of people who actually expose those lies on TikTok. So you have both. You have both. And it's kind of like the democracy of the social media, as we always call it. But if you have the street-run media, that is the legacy media, CNN, BBC, New York Times, Fox News, all of those people, and they are spreading lies, and they're not even doing their journalistic job in order to at least bring the other side.

That's problematic. - And that's worse. You're supposed to be a journalist. - Yes. It's supposed to be a report. Report! You know, report. - Yeah, but I see that this is like a catalyst, an inspiration for the citizen journalist to rise up. - This is what you're doing. - Oh, this, yeah.

- This is what you're doing. No, this is what you're doing because you go into the deep dive. This is like a no-filter thing. There's no spin. - The long form. The long form is going to save us. (laughing) - I see why you hate the TikToks, like a dopamine rush, you know?

- Stupid TikTok. Five hours later. - I saw the resentment in your face. (laughing) - I can't look away. - For like those 30 seconds, I do four hours. (laughing) - I mean, both have a place. Both are exciting, you know? But I can't, it is very dangerous. Like, you can't look away.

And I almost never, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I almost never feel better ever after having used TikTok. - Makes two of us. I can't, I cannot, I cannot. I have a team. By the way, I give my password to a team. I don't even go there because I went once in a dark night, very late at night, I went TikTok, and it was like two hours.

What? - Yeah. - What? I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. "This is dangerous." I'm really like an Instagram and Facebook guy. I don't need that. - But even there, man. - And I barely get out of Twitter. I mean, like X, I don't, I can't.

X is a cesspool, X. It's just like the concentrated hate in the X is too much. It's too much, I can't. - So you don't check it at all? You try not to check it at all? It is very intense. - I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I can't, I can't.

I just like, I post something and I run. (laughing) - Post and ghost. So you're doing comedy here in the United States right now. - Yes. - Joe Rogan has the comedy Mothership, which is an incredible club. Have you considered doing that club? - I would love to. I mean, I-- - Do you know Joe?

- Of course, no. Who doesn't know Joe? - I feel like it's a small world of comedy. That's why I-- - No, I think like Joe's story was like, what he did and stuff that he did in the UFC and his podcast and it just, it's very impressive. The fact that he's there and he's bringing all of those people, whether they're in comedy or in his podcast, it's very impressive.

And this is what the media is all about, what is like the internet is all about, to give you the experiences of stuff that you might never experience. And that is very important. I mean, you do it with people where like, you go into their brains. He goes take people and they take their experiences and their life and their story.

It is very interesting. And this is the beauty of that art form because you have all of these experiences at the tips of your hands and it is there for you to learn from, you know? And what he's doing, like when he moved to Texas and we did the comedy mothership, anybody who would like push comedy forward, that is the most difficult art form and the most demanding.

And the fact that you do that, and he might not even be making money out of it, but he doing that because of his passion, that is enough. - Yeah, he really believes in creating this like place where comedians could be really free. And one of the cool things about the comedy mothership is like, comedian is king there.

- Yeah, like there, we have to like, you have to bow down to the-- - Because you know, the comedian who came there came after like eating shit. - Yeah, eating shit. - Dying out there. - Everywhere else. - If you have basically, you're a saint. (laughing) - I have eaten shit for many years.

(laughing) - Now I'm gonna give you shit. (laughing) - Ah, it's great. You already told me what you think about the state of politics in the United States, but now tell me what you really think. (laughing) What do you think of the choice of Trump versus Biden? How do we end up here?

- I don't know, man. I mean, like the fact that like you have two people over the age of 90, it is-- - I think it's over 100, but that's all right. - It's all combined, like 170. It is so sad. It is so sad that this is what we can produce as a society.

Like a demagogue and a sleepy Joe. I just, he's too, he's not there, man. He's gone, he's gone. I mean, he could, you know like when old people could be like a danger for themselves? He's a danger for the whole world. I mean like the whole world. Like if an old person would die, he would like have like a hip replacement.

We can need a new planet because of one decision. But it's not just that. It's not that. It's what are, when I came here, listen, I'm a Democrat. I always like, and I told you like, I vote for Bernie Sanders. I supported him like 2016, but I couldn't vote then.

And of course, a huge fan of Obama. And one of my things is like, he's the first Muslim president. But he killed Muslims. Like ah, that's the things Muslims do. But anyways. (laughing) - I love that line. (laughing) - And it just, I think the whole idea, like my shock is, I told you about like what Biden said about like, I'm a Zionist.

Okay, we are Zionists. But then like Jews are not safe in anywhere other than Israel. It's like, dude, what the hell are you saying? And if you don't care about me, and you don't care about my misery, why would I care about you winning or losing, you know? And I have a joke that I told people.

It's like, why would even Biden listen to us? He just raised $145 million in California alone from pro-Israeli groups. I mean, what can we Arabs working in the vape business do to him? (laughing) It's like, we cannot compete with that. I mean, like practically, I mean, it's like life is unfair.

The guy's a politician. He needs bills to pay. He needs a campaign to run. He needs money. He will go to the people who will give him money. Joe Biden is the highest paid politician from Israeli lobbyists, $4.6 million over the years. - Yeah, but I also believe in great leaders that go against all of that.

But unfortunately-- - Bernie Sanders was like that. - Bernie Sanders, yes, but also age. I don't wanna be ageist. - Of course, no, no. - But even with like, 'cause I remember listening to Bernie Sanders 20 years ago on "Tom Hartman Show," and I don't wanna say anything against Bernie, but like he was sharper then.

- Of course. - There's a thing with age where-- - Yeah, of course. No, I think I'm a huge fan about like putting a limit on your working years because you don't wanna have like a Mitch McConnell moment every now and then because now the whole thing are like, what is this?

This is not like a house by scare home. It is unfair, it is unfair. And that the whole idea that you have like unlimited, like you have a limit for the president, but you don't have limit for Congress people and senators. What do you mean? This is basically, you can go in and be in governance forever.

And you know, the longer that you can get, the more corrupt you will get. - Yes. - And that is very concerning for Americans. - Everybody, everybody becomes corrupt after a year. I mean, that's why two terms is a good limit. - For everybody. - Yeah, and you know, maybe half a term for Egyptian leaders happens.

- Well, you know, our half term is 15 years. (laughing) - Quarter term. You should come back and run for office there. - Oh my God, no, no. There's a curse in Egyptian presidency. Nobody comes there, like is dead or in jail. - Yeah. - It's not the most appealing job.

- They might make a statue of you though, make you look good. - After my death? (laughing) I look, I look very good dead in a statue. - Yeah, when you look at what happened with Navalny, since you kind of really thought about this in Egypt, what happened with Navalny in Russia?

What do you think about that? - Yeah, but what happened with Navalny in Russia is not something new in Russia. I mean, Putin have like this whole history of poisoning and killing people. And it's kind of like pretty much, I would have to set credit Putin, he's like bringing us the essence of the dark ages, the middle ages.

It's like, you know, basically Putin is like, is the living example of what happens if Game of Thrones was reality. (laughing) It's like death by poison, like a blow up a plane. It's like mysteriously disappears. It is so, it is very dark, but it's like, wow. It's like a, it's a television show.

- Maybe that's what attracts us to that part of the world is that it's so much on display, this game of power, of geopolitics, of war. - No, but the same happens in the West, but I'm behind closed doors. It's not that open. It's not that pronounced, you know.

It's like, oops, Epstein. (laughing) It's like, oh. We just like, I think, I think because of the West is more advanced, like in movies and cinemas, we kind of direct it better. - Yeah. - I think the outcome is like the way that you kind of like set the scene.

It's like, scene and scene. - That's why people are all like landing on the moon. They're like. (laughing) - I get it, but you know, we haven't gone back. (laughing) - There's the flat, I mean. (laughing) - All right, if we zoom out, do you think there will always be war in the world?

- Yeah. - Always be suffering? - Yes. - Yeah. - But here's the thing. I don't think for long. I don't think that will happen for long. - Wait a minute. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Because here's the thing. Humanity is destined to have war, especially, it will have war, but something happened in the last 50 years.

We have had, now we have much more lethal weapons. The problem is, in the beginning, it's like swords against swords, horses, cavalry, like cannons, catapults, mini-missiles, cheeky, cheeky, cheeky. But now we're like a press of a button. You can annihilate the whole planet. - Yeah. - And this is the problem.

Wars will always continue. The problem is when is gonna be the tipping point where we are actually going to destroy ourselves? And it is so easy now to destroy ourselves. The amount of weapons and the quality of weapons that we have, it is designed to kill more effectively, more, it just, it is crazy.

It's like we can create our own destruction on ourself, and I think we're not that far away from it. - Just looking at nuclear weapons, the fascinating thing about nuclear weapons, as I've gotten to learn recently, just how few people are involved in a full-on nuclear war that kills, basically kills everybody.

- Yeah. - Well, three-plus-billion people right away. - And the consequences of the nuclear winter, it's unlivable. - But all it takes is, I mean, one president can do it. So it could be even a false alarm, misunderstanding. - Like what happened in the Cuba missile crisis. - But again, and now there's more nations of progress, more nations are prepared and ready to launch.

- Yeah. - I don't know. - And you have a media and a 24-hours kind of thing that makes you at edge the whole time, that's crazy. - There's a dark perspective on this where there's certain members of the media that would kind of enjoy the prospect of nuclear war, like a little bit, just let's get as close to it as possible.

- You have another factor that will contribute to that, religion. And remember how the radical Islamists talk about the end of time and whatever, but most of the Islamists don't have that much power. Problem is with Christian Zionists now being on the top of the world with America. They have been pushing for that kind of conflict to kind of escalate, escalate.

Listen to Sarah Palin, it's like, "God wants us here." Like Karl Rove, all of the new gods. The dispensationalist Reagan. There's an incredible book called Forcing the Hands of Gods, beautiful book. I read it, it's like it's published 1998, but it still matters today. The whole idea of what like, especially the Zionist Christians who love Israel, but they hate the Jews, they're anti-Semite, but they love Israel because of its role.

This is all basically formed because of the interpretation of the Bible of Schofield and how they talk about the end of time, and then Armageddon, and then the late great planet Earth, and then left behind Sirius, and all of that. It's all about like, we're heading to Armageddon. The problem is Islam has the people that believe that the end of time, and then we have the Christians that believe in the end of time.

And then you have Israel happy that those people are using it for the end of time. And then the whole idea about them pushing as many weapons and troops and people in the Middle East to be there for the nuclear holocaust. And John Hagee, one of the pastors, talk about that, about the brimstones, and it's not gonna be a nuclear holocaust.

All of that people. It's crazy how people are so despising life that they are wanting death. So now, you all would have these revelations, but these revelations mean nothing if you don't have an effective weapon in order to make it happen. And this is the crazy thing. And I'm worried that the end is going to be by someone that wants to meet God a little bit earlier.

- Somebody who's really in a hurry. Well, I have good news for you. Maybe we'll become a multi-planetary species. - Maybe Elon Musk will lead us. - Lead the way to get out in space. - Maybe he's one of them. He's a secret lizard. - I asked you offline to not mention the lizard people.

They are-- - There's like a whole people that believe in the lizard people. It's crazy. - Actually, I have to be honest. I haven't fully looked into the lizard people. I probably should. - You should. - Yeah, well, maybe I'm afraid of the truth. (laughing) - Then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then, then.

- The big reveal. - Removing my face. - So let's say you're wrong about the end of the world. - I hope so. - And we, it all turns out great. And humanity flourishes. Why would that happen? What gives you hope for that trajectory, for humanity? - Younger people.

The people of TikTok that you don't like. (laughing) Yeah, there is a lot of like bullshit there. - You know, after you saying this, people just keep sending you TikTok videos. These younger people, this. (laughing) - This woman showing her boobs, that woman. - That's gonna save us. That's gonna save us.

- All right, awesome, thank you. - No, there's like, I think there is a wealth of it. You know, I remember like the joke that said like, we thought that like when we have internet, we're gonna have like be more, you know, more informed. And now we're watching twerking videos, and that is true.

But on the other side, the fact that you have the availability of information, I'm learning a lot. And there's people who are using that platform. It's not the majority because, you know, it's not very interesting and exciting. But I think there might be a tipping point where there's enough people that will be aware.

And maybe they would collectively do something in order to bring back the power to the small man. And maybe it sounds very naive, but we don't know. We don't know, because you have already seen the legacy media and the legacy politicians shaking in the past few months. - They're getting nervous.

- They're getting nervous because people are calling them out. And those people who are like hiding behind their desks, behind in their offices, and not like holding out for that, but like people now are calling them out. And it is not gonna happen like this year or next year, but I think it's something.

- What advice would you give to those young folks? - I will never give advice to those people. (laughing) - Get off TikTok. - I know, I will never, I will never, because like their input is different than mine. But like there's one thing I learned when people saw me, did the revolution fail in Egypt?

Did people, that the people, it's like, listen, the revolution is not an event. It's not like, hey, we go in, we topple the government. It's not a revolution. A revolution is a process, it's a very long process. And maybe that process, I mean, as much as we don't like what happened in the Arab world, but the people there, the awareness that happened and the discussions that have been opened that you didn't even imagine what happened in the Middle East is happening.

And maybe the beginning of any hope of change is that people start talking, speaking out, talking about stuff they were not allowed to speak about. Like, for example, Israel. (laughing) - The revolution continues, ah, yes. Bassem, you're a beautiful human being. It's truly a pleasure and honor to meet you.

I could just feel the love radiating from you. I hope I get to see you perform live. I hope to get to see you many more times. Thank you for being who you are. - Thank you so much, and I would love to invite you for my new special, "The Islamo-Nazi Bassem Youssef." (laughing) - That should be the title of your autobiography.

Thank you so much. - Thank you, brother. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Bassem Youssef. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Jon Stewart. The press can hold this magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen, or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous flaming ant epidemic.

If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)