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Best moments: Riz Khan interviews Andrew Tate, Bassem Youssef, Bill Gates and more
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Hello and welcome, I'm Riz Khan.
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At the start of this year, I set off
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on a mission to conduct interviews
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with some of the most prominent and
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interesting people around, as
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well as those directly connected
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with the news of the day.
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We wanted some interesting angles
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and perspectives from people who are
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making waves or encouraging us
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to think differently.
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A little over six months later,
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we've brought you more than 70
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interviews with a cast including
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Bill gates, Norman Finkelstein,
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Robert F Kennedy Jr, Andrew
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Tate, Tyson Fury, Omid Djalili
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and Stewart Copeland.
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And in the months ahead, we'll be
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bringing you an even more diverse
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collection of charismatic
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contributors.
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But the sit down, which started it
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all was the Egyptian-American
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cardiothoracic surgeon turned
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comedian Bassem Youssef,
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having made a name for himself in
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the Arab world with comedy shows
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and political satire, he
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found himself at the center of the
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debate on Israel's military action
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in Gaza following the surprise
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attack on Israel by Hamas on the
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7th of October, 2023.
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Well, turning his cutting humor to
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the funny bones of a wider global
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audience, Bassem was soon
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touring internationally with his
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standup comedy show in both Arabic
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and English.
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I caught up with him for a chat when
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his US tour stopped for three shows
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in Miami.
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The charming comedian with movie
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star good looks candidly discussed
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what took him from the operating
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theater to the comedy theater,
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and Bassem explained how the
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unlikely medium of comedy provided
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the perfect perspective to deliver
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incisive observations about the
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violence and politics of the
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Israel-Gaza conflict.
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Here's another chance to see Bassem
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Youssef in full flow, as he
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discusses how he's had to adjust to
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comedy across cultures and English
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language, as well as Arabic.
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It's not about cultural sensitivity
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as much as about delivery and
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style. So, when
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you do, comedy,
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it's not just about the material.
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It's not about the joke that you
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write. It's about the delivery, the
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cadence, the speed, the
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rhythm.
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And it's different from one language
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another. It's different from one
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dialect to another.
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So, when I,
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when I started doing English,
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I didn't do well because
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there's things that doesn't come
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naturally to you with the cadence
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and the rhythm of the language.
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And I had to learn that.
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I had to learn it.
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But it's all trial and error.
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And when I read Arabic, I learned
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a lot from the English because I was
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doing the English for five years
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now, and I now I'm doing
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Arabic stand up that I've been
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touring for a year, and
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I had to actually learn a lot from
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the cadence and adjust it to
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my own language.
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So it's, it's it's, it's
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a lot of mental work.
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Quite a science.
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It's. Yeah, it is a lot of science
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here.
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Now, often when you're doing satire
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and humor around political things,
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you're often touching on sensitive,
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sometimes intense subjects.
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For example, now with Israel, Gaza.
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And I wonder what
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considerations you have to, to, to
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take into account what
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boundaries you have to set when
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you're doing that?
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No. When I do stand up, stand up
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comedy gives you a lot of freedom.
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But I found that, like, the way
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that I connect with my audience is
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through personal stories.
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So the English show has a different
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theme than the Arabic show, by the
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way. They are totally different.
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It's not a translation.
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Yeah.
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The English show has its own
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story and theme and direction.
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The Arabic show, its own theme of
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the actual the English show.
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I talk about my journey as someone
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who's a doctor, left medicine
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into a comedy show, into doing
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comedy in in Egypt,
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left Egypt, came
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here as Trump was becoming
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president. And I'm coming here as a
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and I want to minority.
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And I joke about
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our, journey
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as Arabs coming into America
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as immigrants.
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And there's a lot of like,
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jokes that could be done not
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just about people not accepting us,
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but also about us as Arabs.
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It's there are a lot of
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self-deprecating jokes, too.
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It's not about like, white people,
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white people, because I don't like
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that kind of comedy.
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It's I also like to
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self criticize a lot.
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So it's a it's a show that everybody
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is comfortable, whether you're white
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with your brogue, whether you're
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Arabic, whether from the Arab world
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or whether you're somewhere else
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from the world. I have people from
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all kinds of people from Latin
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America, people from Asia.
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People come and enjoy the show
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because it's a I made it in a way
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that anybody, everybody can enjoy
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it in the Arabic show is different.
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I talk about how difficult it is to
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speak to a group of people
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who are Arabs, and we speak
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the same language with some of the
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same language, because dialects
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in Arabic in the Arab world is very,
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very variant.
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And no matter how people think, oh,
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but everybody understand Egyptian
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dialect, they understand the
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Egyptian that they see on
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television.
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But in the street talk, every
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talk is different now.
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Interesting enough, you, you.
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One of the things you joked about
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when you were on Piers Morgan show
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was referring
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to the situation in Gaza, people in
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Gaza being killed. You said you've
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been trying to kill your wife, and
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your wife is hard to kill because
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she uses the kids as, as
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human shields you.
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The interestingly enough, that that
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stuck with a lot of people.
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And I'm wondering to what extent,
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you know, your wife felt comfortable
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about being part of the act.
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Oh, no. No, my wife was very good.
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My my wife is the coolest person.
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The world, I think my my my wife is,
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I think she is the most
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if I would, choose one thing to
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describe her is she is a grounding
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factor.
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She's a has been very grounded.
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She's been very supportive.
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If you've seen me going through a
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lot of trouble.
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And the best thing that she
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innately knew how to do is just
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to be there and not to add any of my
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stress.
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Because sometimes, especially if you
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come from Middle Eastern culture,
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you people around you will stress
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you out more if they care too much
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or what you just like.
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She she she has faith.
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Like, are you okay?
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You need anything? Fine.
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I'm there if you need me.
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So she's very mature about
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things and it doesn't mean that she
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care less.
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On a serious note, how is
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your family doing? I know, of
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course, there's the concern of,
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Palestinian background and the
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situation.
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They're closer now.
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They're between ten units and Rafah
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and, so far, I
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mean, we're lucky that no one of her
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direct family has been I mean,
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they've been there casualties
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before, but so far, like,
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they're safe. So.
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But communication's difficult.
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Very, very spotty.
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In and out. Yeah.
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No, I wish them safety.
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How much pushback do you get when
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your, your humor goes into that kind
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of political satire on sensitive
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subjects?
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Well, I've been having this pushback
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since I had my show in Egypt.
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At a certain point, people would
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support my humor, as long as it
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actually fits well with
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their own political agenda.
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And when I turn against them, they
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hate me. And I.
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I've seen that happen many times to
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me. I had people who would like,
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supported me when I was criticizing
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the Muslim Brotherhood, and when I
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criticized the Army, they turned
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against me. I had people who
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critically loved me. When I
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criticized the army and when I
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went against the Islamists, the the
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get against me. It's just the
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people.
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People everybody think that they're.
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All with political satire I until
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it really like, you know,
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gets against with their own beliefs.
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So, everybody
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pretends to be objective, but
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they're not really.
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People want fingers pointed at
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everyone else, but the.
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Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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I have to point out, though, for
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those who don't know that you must
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be the most highly qualified Arab
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comedian, Doctor Kirk.
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Yeah. Because of the medical part.
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Yeah.
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I mean, you know, I used to ask
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surgeon.
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I wish that my skill and
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the skills that I acquired in the,
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in the, in the operating room
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on the operating theater will help
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me in real theater.
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But it doesn't translate now,
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because if you watch me as a joke,
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you'll bomb. Nobody is like, oh, but
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he's a doctor. Nobody cares.
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Do you have a but do you ever regret
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leaving that career or putting it to
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one side?
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No, I didn't like it.
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I didn't like it. I say this, I have
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lived in 19 years in medicine, seven
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years as a medical student and,
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and 12 years practicing.
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And I've never liked a single moment
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of it. I was there because you
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had high grades. You had to go into
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medicine, you go to medicine,
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you have to be there.
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And it's just it's like I didn't
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find it. That's that's the options
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that you were given. And,
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and I always say I was, I was
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a heart surgeon, but I, my heart
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wasn't in it.
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I used to joke that I dated a
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cardiothoracic surgeon once.
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Didn't turn out. She was heartless.
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Sorry.
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Yeah. Where we usually are,
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we usually are.
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Yeah.
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Just to be a clinical subject.
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Yeah, we we we have to be very
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focused on the work at hand and kind
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of like, get out of, like the our
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personal perspective.
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You know, going back to being a
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comedian in Egypt, it's it
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can be quite a risky,
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profession in the Middle East.
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I mean, you just if you target the
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wrong people or if some comment goes
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up, it's. How difficult did you find
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that?
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Well, you know, hindsight is 2020.
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We we look at it not right now.
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And we say yes, that is the case.
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But when I started it, there was
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kind of an opportunity, a window
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of opportunity.
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Everything was fluid.
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There was like a chance for
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everybody to speak up after the,
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after the Arab Spring.
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And then that window kind of, like,
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became smaller and smaller and
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smaller.
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And I tried to kind of
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I worked within these boundaries.
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So I had the freedom.
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Other people had the freedom.
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So at the beginning that that wasn't
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that bad.
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But as it went on, that
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window of opportunity was closing
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in. And now you tried to to
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deliver the comedy as much as you
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can. And when you can't, you
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I, I left, I mean, and
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I never claimed to be a hero
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or a political activist or someone
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who would just, you
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know, I was just telling
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people, I'm a comedian and you need
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to deal with me as such.
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And when you don't, when you can't
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do it anymore because it's unsafe,
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people get disappointed and that
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love turns into hate.
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One man, who was very much in the
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news earlier this year is the highly
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controversial influencer Andrew
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Tate, as he dealt with legal battles
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in Romania and the UK.
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The world seems rather split along
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the lines of his very loyal
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supporters, who argue that it's
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hugely outspoken perspective on
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masculinity has helped them find
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a path of confidence.
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And those who believe he's a very
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dangerous figure who's having a
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disastrous influence on young men,
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effectively turning them into
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aggressive misogynists.
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The controversy has earned him the
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label the king of toxic masculinity,
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but Andrew Tate argues he's not
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trying to be divisive, and that much
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of the perception people have is
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because he's a victim of the MSM,
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the mainstream media, whom he
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believes has cultivated a negative
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narrative around him.
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This is how he addressed it in the
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first of a two part discussion I had
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with him at his home in the Romanian
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capital, Bucharest.
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Well, I don't even see myself as
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divisive, and I think 99% of the
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world doesn't see me as divisive.
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And I really think so.
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And what they say is toxic
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masculinity is simply masculinity in
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most of the world today.
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In fact, even in the countries now
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where they're going to try and pretend
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my message is damaging and dangerous
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too, I say to men, they should go
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work hard, get strong, go to the
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gym, be mentally disciplined, be
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stoic. All of these things were
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accepted by the entire population 10
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or 15 years ago.
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I haven't changed my views.
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I haven't come up with anything
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radical or new.
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They've changed the parameters of
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what a man is and they've lost their
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minds, not me.
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So I don't really believe I'm
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divisive. In fact, every single time
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I hit pieces published by me,
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published about me by the MSM,
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they turn the comments off.
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Please. You could check yourself
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every time the BBC, channel four,
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channel five Australian news,
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whenever they try and do a hit piece
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on me, they have to turn the
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comments off because there's just
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thousands of comments saying you're
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wrong and he's right.
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A man should be a man and a woman
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should be a woman. And that's what
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makes families and society
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beautiful.
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I'll get into that in a minute.
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But I mean, there are lots of people
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who love you.
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There are lots of people who hate
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you. So that is divisive, is it?
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Well, I don't think you would
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have ever achieved anything in the
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world. If you don't have certain
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people who hate you, that's fine.
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And there can be a contingent of the
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populace who hates me while I still
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remain eternally correct.
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I'm still right.
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That's fine.
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I mean, it's fine, and you could
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be the best thing in the world.
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It doesn't matter what you are.
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You can be a Ferrari and someone
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will hate you because you're too
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loud.
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I know what I'm saying is true.
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I know my message is overwhelming,
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overwhelmingly positive.
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I know I've had a massive positive
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impact on millions of people's
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lives. I know that
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in the end, as this
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art completes and my innocence is
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proven to be, a lot of people will
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have to apologize to me.
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If somebody wants to sit in their
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bedroom crying their eyes out
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because I said something they find
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mildly offensive, well, then I guess
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that's their problem.
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Do you think there's any chance that
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you may have also had a very
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negative impact on many people's
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lives?
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It's interesting you say that
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because I think if you
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actually want to be a professional
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and like I said, I've analyzed all
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these things very non emotionally.
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I think it's impossible to say
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anything positive doesn't have a
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negative impact. And under the right
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circumstances, there's no light
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without dark water is positive.
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You need water to live.
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You can drown in water.
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Music makes people happy.
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Yes, you can listen to music, you
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can feel happy. You can enjoy a
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party. It also sings about doing
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drugs. Poor people become drug
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addicts. Like I would
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like to believe. My message is
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overwhelmingly positive.
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I tell people to train, to
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work hard, to make as much money as
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possible, to be stoic, etc.
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I'd be a liar if I
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couldn't sit here and say, well,
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I've convinced 100 million men to
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go to the gym and one of them
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dropped a dumbbell on his foot.
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Well, maybe.
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Perhaps, I mean, but what can you
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do? You have to speak in
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generalities.
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Exceptions don't disprove the rule.
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My law, the things I'm saying are
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are generally good things,
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and the rules are generally good
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for some. So for them to come along
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and attack me as they do this is
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what's so disingenuous about the
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mainstream media, because this is
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exactly what they do.
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I'll teach men how important it is
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to be strong, go to the gym and look
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after themselves.
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They will then see thousands of
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kids, go to the gym and work hard.
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They will then find one kid who goes
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to the gym who's maybe autistic.
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Maybe he's not socially well
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conditioned. Maybe he had bad
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parents. Who knows?
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He starts walking around the school
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saying, I'm strong, I'm strong and
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bumping into people.
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Then they'll say, Andrew Tate did
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that and they'll attack me.
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That's as asinine.
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That is as foolish as waiting
00:13:51
for somebody to crash a car and see
00:13:53
that they were playing a Taylor
00:13:54
Swift song and start saying that
00:13:55
Taylor Swift fans crash
00:13:57
cars because most people listen to
00:13:59
Taylor Swift and don't crash their
00:14:00
car. So the whole MSM narrative
00:14:01
against me is completely
00:14:02
disingenuous.
00:14:08
In the second part of our
00:14:09
conversation, Andrew Tate talked in
00:14:11
detail about why he became a muslim
00:14:13
and why it seems that so many
00:14:14
professional fighters in the West
00:14:16
decide to embrace Islam as
00:14:18
their faith.
00:14:24
Because it's a warrior's mindset.
00:14:26
Islam is low, understands the
00:14:27
realities of life and
00:14:29
the realities of life as
00:14:31
a man is constant and never ending
00:14:33
war.
00:14:34
And I mean that for every man on
00:14:36
earth. You're at war right now.
00:14:37
You're at home watching this.
00:14:38
You're at war.
00:14:39
Well, that's the term jihad, but it
00:14:41
usually means a self struggle.
00:14:42
No, it was perfect.
00:14:44
Even better. Self struggle.
00:14:45
You nailed it.
00:14:46
That's what I was about to say.
00:14:47
With war, getting to your job and
00:14:48
back without losing your temper.
00:14:50
And the commute is war.
00:14:52
Taking care of your family is war.
00:14:54
Raising your children despite the
00:14:56
government propaganda being injected
00:14:57
into their ear.
00:14:58
Is war maintaining a healthy body
00:15:00
and mind is constantly war.
00:15:01
Paying your bills is war.
00:15:02
Life is a man is war.
00:15:04
And when you're truly a warrior
00:15:06
in your heart and in your soul and
00:15:07
in your actions, and you understand
00:15:09
how important God is, you're going
00:15:10
to end up believing and
00:15:12
as what you're gonna end up being a
00:15:13
muslim.
00:15:13
When it comes to religious
00:15:14
tolerance, are you tolerant of other
00:15:16
religion?
00:15:17
If you tolerate everything, then
00:15:19
you stand for nothing.
00:15:20
I agree that tolerance is a strange
00:15:22
word, but it's used widely to imply
00:15:24
it's a high risk tolerance.
00:15:25
Tolerance is a hijacked word.
00:15:26
So tolerance in and of itself,
00:15:29
just like we talked earlier about
00:15:30
gender equality, is a hijacked word
00:15:31
that the matrix has hijacked and
00:15:33
taken a nice, pretty word and
00:15:34
they've hijacked it. Because when
00:15:35
they say you must be tolerant, what
00:15:37
they're saying is move out your
00:15:38
house, give it up to asylum seekers.
00:15:39
Allow your son to drop his balls
00:15:40
off. That's what they're telling you
00:15:41
to do. So tolerance is hijacked.
00:15:43
However, my brother's
00:15:45
a Christian. I live with a
00:15:46
Christian. It's not my job to be
00:15:48
an Islamic scholar.
00:15:50
I don't know enough.
00:15:51
I'm a river.
00:15:52
It's not my job to go through and
00:15:54
tell other people about their own
00:15:55
religion. It's not my job to insult
00:15:56
other religions.
00:15:57
I can only say why I stopped being a
00:15:59
Christian because I lost faith in
00:16:00
the religion as a whole.
00:16:01
That's my personal preference.
00:16:03
That's all I can do.
00:16:04
I'm tolerant of other religions.
00:16:05
I fact, I think we need more God in
00:16:07
the world, not less the
00:16:09
I'm. I'm tolerant of religions.
00:16:11
If I meet an atheist, perhaps
00:16:13
I might look at him. Strange.
00:16:14
Perhaps you are for a while.
00:16:15
Well, yes, exactly.
00:16:16
But perhaps I wouldn't do business
00:16:18
with atheists anymore.
00:16:19
Perhaps if someone sat and said I'm
00:16:20
an atheist, I would lose respect for
00:16:21
them. I'll admit that openly on
00:16:23
camera. But some would say I'm a
00:16:24
Christian. I'd say, okay, that's
00:16:25
fine. Beautiful. You believe in God.
00:16:27
I believe in God. The world needs
00:16:28
more God.
00:16:29
And I think that's very important.
00:16:30
But this tolerant world we have to
00:16:31
be careful with, we have to be very
00:16:33
careful with this word.
00:16:34
I agree, it's I mean, actually it's
00:16:35
it's accepting. I think it's a
00:16:36
better word than tolerance.
00:16:37
Good tolerance implies putting up
00:16:39
with someone.
00:16:39
But the reason it's so important to
00:16:40
be careful with this word is because
00:16:42
one of the core tenets of being a
00:16:44
man is intolerance.
00:16:46
If you're a man, you're intolerant.
00:16:48
You have principles, and principles
00:16:50
can't be broken, which makes you
00:16:52
intolerant. You have duty, which
00:16:54
means you can't have your actions
00:16:55
changed or psyop out of you, which
00:16:57
makes you intolerant.
00:16:58
You have land you're supposed
00:17:00
to protect. You have your people.
00:17:02
You're supposed to protect your
00:17:03
family. You don't want strangers
00:17:05
turning up in your house.
00:17:06
You're intolerant of random guests
00:17:08
at three in the morning.
00:17:09
If you're half, if you're half good
00:17:11
as a man, if you're half good
00:17:13
as a man, you're intolerant of
00:17:15
a lot of things.
00:17:16
So I would never see or call myself
00:17:17
a tolerant man, because that makes
00:17:19
me a walkover.
00:17:20
And I'm certainly not a walkover.
00:17:21
I am tolerant, sure,
00:17:23
but not in this hijacked sense of
00:17:25
the word wrong. And I allow myself
00:17:26
and my people and those I care about
00:17:28
to be decimated by the insane
00:17:30
agents of Satan.
00:17:32
And are interesting. You say you're
00:17:33
a Reaver, not a convert.
00:17:34
Yes.
00:17:35
Why?
00:17:36
Well, we all start as Muslims.
00:17:38
Is the, my understanding
00:17:40
of it. Like I said, I'm not an
00:17:42
Islamic scholar, but I
00:17:44
think of what I found
00:17:46
most amazing about my reversion, to
00:17:47
be honest with you, is how similar
00:17:49
it was to Christianity.
00:17:50
It's really not as far away as
00:17:51
people believe it is.
00:17:52
And I feel like especially in the
00:17:53
Western world, especially in America,
00:17:54
because I'm American, the white
00:17:56
Christians see it as this far away
00:17:58
religion from a far away place.
00:18:00
And it's very, very different.
00:18:01
Not understanding that Christianity
00:18:02
and Islam were born from the same
00:18:04
period of same in the same place
00:18:06
on earth.
00:18:07
Right. And we respect and, and,
00:18:11
we respect and worship a lot of the
00:18:12
same people.
00:18:13
And it's, it's a beautiful thing.
00:18:15
So we all start as
00:18:17
Muslims as my understanding.
00:18:18
And like I said, I'm very careful
00:18:19
how I talked about these subjects
00:18:20
because those people are more intelligent
00:18:21
than me, but it's closer to
00:18:23
Christianity than I thought, which
00:18:24
is also quite refreshing.
00:18:26
Are you ritualistic?
00:18:26
I mean, do you pray five times a
00:18:28
day? Is it something important to
00:18:29
you?
00:18:30
I'm not judge.
00:18:30
I'm just. Sometimes I will pray five
00:18:32
times in a day.
00:18:33
I won't always manage to pray five
00:18:35
times in a day.
00:18:36
It's important to me.
00:18:37
Yes, I think that it gives me a lot
00:18:38
of mental clarity. I think it's a
00:18:39
nice thing to do.
00:18:40
I think if you don't have time in
00:18:42
your day to or you can't make time
00:18:44
in your day for God, then what
00:18:46
are you making time in your day for?
00:18:52
Over the years, the founder of
00:18:54
Microsoft, Bill gates, has gone
00:18:56
from being seen for the longest time
00:18:57
as simply the richest man in the
00:18:59
world to evolving into a
00:19:01
dedicated campaigner for global
00:19:02
health issues such as eradicating
00:19:05
the crippling disease polio, but
00:19:07
then finding himself at the center
00:19:08
of conspiracy theories that included
00:19:11
him being a megalomaniac who wants
00:19:13
to control the world through
00:19:14
microchips in vaccines.
00:19:16
I've interviewed Bill gates a number
00:19:17
of times over the years, and earlier
00:19:19
this year we met again where he
00:19:20
discussed his hopes for relegating
00:19:22
some diseases to the rubbish bin of
00:19:24
history.
00:19:25
How surprised he was by conspiracies
00:19:27
involving his name, and
00:19:28
how he's encouraged to see
00:19:30
philanthropy taking a greater hold
00:19:32
among many wealthy people.
00:19:38
Well, I see that, you know, in terms
00:19:40
of generosity, that's always been
00:19:42
global. It's, you know, at the heart
00:19:44
of the Christian and Muslim
00:19:46
religion is that those who have
00:19:48
a lot have a responsibility
00:19:50
to give back.
00:19:51
I'd say the new thing is, to
00:19:53
take this charitable money,
00:19:56
whether from individuals
00:19:58
or governments and really be
00:19:59
strategic, like creating
00:20:01
a new vaccine or,
00:20:03
you know, using a mapping approach
00:20:05
to find all the children so we can,
00:20:08
get rid of polio and, and really
00:20:10
measuring all the results.
00:20:11
So with such limited money
00:20:14
to help poor people,
00:20:16
we have to make sure that it's been
00:20:17
spent very, very well both on
00:20:19
health and education and
00:20:21
all the things that can lift
00:20:23
people up.
00:20:24
And I know there's a there's a
00:20:26
greater challenge.
00:20:27
You don't get involved with
00:20:27
political commentary.
00:20:28
But what we do see in this day and
00:20:30
age is some really severe,
00:20:32
impact of conflicts.
00:20:33
We, you know, we see what's
00:20:34
happening. Ukraine, Gaza,
00:20:36
Sudan, Congo, three decades of that,
00:20:39
these kind of, conflicts.
00:20:40
How much do they set back your
00:20:42
efforts to have some major impact?
00:20:44
Well, the conflicts are are
00:20:46
such a terrible thing.
00:20:47
The loss of life, the destruction
00:20:49
of property.
00:20:50
You know, it also means that the
00:20:52
ongoing effort to help poor
00:20:54
countries, gets pushed
00:20:56
down.
00:20:56
You know, Africa's got a lot of.
00:20:58
Poor countries, but less money
00:21:00
is going there as,
00:21:02
urgent issues around
00:21:04
these complex in the Middle East and
00:21:06
Ukraine.
00:21:07
Are now,
00:21:09
taking those, those very limited
00:21:11
dollars. And so, yes,
00:21:13
it's the, the goals
00:21:15
that the world to set, the United
00:21:17
Nations Sustainable Development
00:21:18
Goals.
00:21:19
We're going to miss those because of
00:21:21
a combination
00:21:23
of, first, the pandemic and now
00:21:25
all of this instability.
00:21:27
It's interesting you mentioned that
00:21:28
because I was reading how when we do
00:21:30
that, that very in-depth
00:21:32
interview in March 2014 with rolling
00:21:34
Stone magazine, you gave your
00:21:36
thoughts on a various, bunch of
00:21:37
issues from climate change and
00:21:39
philanthropy, the state of America.
00:21:40
And you said, innovation is the real
00:21:42
driver of progress at that time,
00:21:44
and that America is way better today
00:21:46
than it's ever been.
00:21:47
Now, considering what we've seen in
00:21:48
terms of China making so much
00:21:50
progress, especially in technology,
00:21:51
the serious competition is created
00:21:53
for the US and of course, the
00:21:54
current state of politics.
00:21:56
Would you still make that statement
00:21:57
now?
00:21:58
Well, certainly China's done a lot
00:22:00
of very impressive things in
00:22:02
manufacturing high speed rail.
00:22:03
But in terms of overall innovation,
00:22:06
the U.S. is still unequal.
00:22:08
You know, if you are
00:22:10
lead the country you're born in to
00:22:11
go work with the best people
00:22:14
in a subject area.
00:22:15
Mostly you're going to U.S.
00:22:17
institutions.
00:22:18
And so that's meant whether it's
00:22:20
medicine or I,
00:22:23
the U.S. still has a lead there,
00:22:25
even though these technologies
00:22:27
fortunately get, distributed
00:22:29
globally and will benefit the.
00:22:30
Entire.
00:22:31
World. There's something else that
00:22:32
caught me in that interview, too.
00:22:33
You said, you know, asked about
00:22:35
your greatest fear looking 50 years
00:22:37
ahead.
00:22:38
You said there will be some really
00:22:39
bad things that will happen in the
00:22:40
next 50 to 100 years, but hopefully
00:22:42
none of them on the scale of, say, a
00:22:44
million people that you wouldn't
00:22:45
expect to die from a pandemic or
00:22:47
nuclear or bioterrorism.
00:22:48
And a few years, of course, later,
00:22:49
we saw the Covid 19 pandemic.
00:22:51
I think the estimates are nearly 3.5
00:22:53
million or something close to what
00:22:54
is taken. And I wonder how,
00:22:57
your views on the risks have changed
00:22:59
when you look at that? I mean,
00:23:00
you're fighting very hard to get
00:23:01
that 1%, for example, with polio,
00:23:03
and then you have all these other
00:23:04
things that might be impinging on
00:23:06
it.
00:23:06
Well, overall.
00:23:08
The progress in health is
00:23:10
phenomenal. Most people don't know.
00:23:12
We've gone from over 10 million
00:23:14
children under five dying every year
00:23:16
to now we're under 5 million.
00:23:18
And so even though that's plateaued
00:23:20
out with the pandemic
00:23:22
and instability, that's something we
00:23:23
can be very proud of.
00:23:25
You know, we got all these new
00:23:27
vaccines out to the world's
00:23:28
children. And that is the primary
00:23:30
reason we were able to cut the
00:23:32
deaths so much.
00:23:33
Now we need to get back
00:23:35
to cutting it in half again.
00:23:38
But you know, the financial
00:23:40
situation, instabilities meant that
00:23:42
we're.
00:23:42
We're we're moving a lot.
00:23:45
More slowly than
00:23:46
I would hope.
00:23:48
You know, I, I predicted
00:23:50
there was a risk of a pandemic.
00:23:52
And sadly, you know, that came
00:23:54
true.
00:23:56
We're past that.
00:23:57
Now we need to get
00:23:59
people working together in
00:24:01
partnership and
00:24:03
taking innovation, and in applying
00:24:05
it to help the very poorest in the
00:24:06
world. And so much has changed in
00:24:08
the past two decades, perhaps even
00:24:10
in the past few years in terms of
00:24:12
media is the media.
00:24:13
But now we've got social media, of
00:24:14
course, in the mix. Is it your
00:24:15
friend around me now?
00:24:17
Well, certainly I.
00:24:19
Work with the media to get
00:24:21
the good news out about how
00:24:23
we produce staffs and
00:24:25
where there's challenges.
00:24:26
And, you know, I want citizens
00:24:29
of generous countries,
00:24:31
to feel proud of the work they're
00:24:32
doing. You know, Saudi should feel
00:24:34
proud. Now they're on the polio
00:24:36
eradication team.
00:24:39
We need more of that,
00:24:41
that generosity.
00:24:42
And and so the media
00:24:44
is, is the way that
00:24:46
we help people learn about it.
00:24:48
And of course, it's, you know, you
00:24:49
must get really frustrated with all
00:24:51
the conspiracy theories.
00:24:52
You just never seem to go.
00:24:52
Do you think you'll ever get over
00:24:53
those? They say, you know about
00:24:55
vaccinations and chips and so on.
00:24:57
Well, up until the pandemic,
00:24:59
it. I hadn't thought of that as a
00:25:00
big phenomenon.
00:25:01
I was completely taken by surprise
00:25:04
at those conspiracies, you know,
00:25:06
and some of them centered on me,
00:25:08
and some of them were, you know,
00:25:10
exactly the opposite of the truth.
00:25:12
You know, vaccines have saved
00:25:14
more lives than any other tool.
00:25:15
And yet, they came under
00:25:17
attack.
00:25:23
Another of my guests who's often
00:25:24
linked to conspiracy theories is
00:25:26
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the son
00:25:27
of the late Bobby Kennedy, the US
00:25:29
lawyer and presidential hopeful who
00:25:31
was assassinated in June 1968,
00:25:34
almost five years after his brother,
00:25:35
President John F Kennedy, RFK
00:25:37
Junior's uncle, was also shot
00:25:39
and killed.
00:25:40
RFK Jr was on a presidential
00:25:42
campaign trail when I caught up with
00:25:44
him in Raleigh, North Carolina,
00:25:46
where, among other things, he told
00:25:47
me that he saw both the Democrats
00:25:49
and Republicans as parties
00:25:51
of war, saying he would wind
00:25:52
down the US's military empire
00:25:54
abroad, and gave some thought to how
00:25:56
he would deal with the conflict
00:25:57
between Russia and Ukraine.
00:26:04
Well, it's a proxy war.
00:26:06
I mean, the real
00:26:09
fulcrum of the war is over the
00:26:10
extension of NATO into
00:26:12
into Ukraine and the extension
00:26:14
of NATO across all of Europe.
00:26:16
We agreed in 1992, when Gorbachev
00:26:18
moved his troops out of Russian
00:26:21
troops out of
00:26:23
East Germany and allowed us to
00:26:24
reunify East Germany under
00:26:27
under under
00:26:29
NATO,
00:26:31
we agreed not to move NATO
00:26:33
to the east. And since then we've
00:26:34
moved it into 14 countries.
00:26:36
We put agents, missile systems which
00:26:38
are nuclear capable, and Poland,
00:26:39
Romania, we
00:26:41
could deliver nuclear payrolls
00:26:44
loads to Moscow within 12 minutes,
00:26:46
so we could decapitate the entire
00:26:48
Soviet leaders in 12 minutes.
00:26:49
We walked away from the two nuclear
00:26:51
weapons treaty, the intermediate
00:26:52
treaty that we had to sign.
00:26:53
We unilaterally walked away
00:26:56
unnaturally.
00:26:58
Putin has national
00:27:00
security anxieties, the same ones
00:27:02
that my uncle had when the Russians
00:27:03
put Soviet missiles in Cuba.
00:27:05
I'm not making excuses for Putin,
00:27:07
who had other options.
00:27:08
And, you know, Putin is who Putin
00:27:10
has. And I'm not a supporter.
00:27:12
Putin's,
00:27:13
my uncle always said, you have to
00:27:15
put your, your yourself
00:27:17
and the other guy shit.
00:27:18
And that has not happened here.
00:27:20
Nobody, you know, our our greatest
00:27:22
diplomat, George
00:27:24
Clinton, who was the architect of
00:27:25
the containment policy during the
00:27:27
Cold War.
00:27:28
Bill Pierce, head of the CIA,
00:27:30
Bill Perry, who was,
00:27:32
U.S. and Soviet Union, all said,
00:27:36
we're going to resign.
00:27:36
If you move, you don't do Ukraine
00:27:38
because you're forcing the Russians
00:27:40
into a violent response.
00:27:41
Now, I'll just say this
00:27:43
Russians two times come to the
00:27:45
negotiating table and worked out
00:27:47
terms with sheets, with President
00:27:49
Zelensky that they were ready to
00:27:50
sign. And in both cases, the U.S.
00:27:53
torpedoed those agreements,
00:27:55
one in April of 2022 and
00:27:57
the other was the Minsk Accords.
00:27:59
And we forced Zelensky
00:28:01
not to sign those agreements.
00:28:04
I'm going to ask you, as we're
00:28:05
running out of time, I'm going to ask
00:28:06
you about the home front.
00:28:07
Now, the US, view
00:28:09
in the USA, gun violence, obviously
00:28:11
raises its ugly head, regularly.
00:28:14
That's a that's an issue have to do
00:28:15
with the you're also
00:28:17
divergent from the MAGA the make
00:28:19
American America great again
00:28:20
movement on that front and abortion
00:28:22
affirmative action.
00:28:24
What is your your perspective.
00:28:26
How will you win over the voter base
00:28:27
that that that.
00:28:28
I can talk about whenever
00:28:30
the voter base I'm talking about
00:28:32
staying true to my principles.
00:28:35
And I've fought for medical freedom
00:28:36
for as
00:28:38
hard as anybody in the world, I
00:28:40
would say, people ought to have
00:28:42
autonomy over their own bodies.
00:28:43
The government shouldn't be telling
00:28:45
people what to do.
00:28:46
And I think every
00:28:48
abortion is a tragedy.
00:28:49
Nobody wants to have one.
00:28:51
But the, choice should not be
00:28:53
left for the government.
00:28:54
We have to trust women.
00:28:55
We have to trust them.
00:28:56
Others on that issue,
00:28:58
on the gun issue, we have a Second
00:29:00
Amendment in this country.
00:29:01
I believe in the Constitution.
00:29:02
And the Supreme Court has,
00:29:05
has given a very, very expensive
00:29:08
reading of the Second Amendment
00:29:10
so that it's almost impossible to
00:29:12
regulate guns.
00:29:13
I'm not going to take anybody's guns
00:29:14
away. As president.
00:29:15
I will say that
00:29:17
we ought to be investigating the
00:29:19
reason that school shootings in
00:29:21
this country, that mass shooting at,
00:29:22
are unacceptable.
00:29:24
And we need to be investigating
00:29:26
why they're happening in this
00:29:27
country. Why are we alone,
00:29:30
why is that happening?
00:29:31
This why did it never happened
00:29:33
before?
00:29:34
Two of the culprits that ought to be
00:29:36
investigated. I'm not saying that we
00:29:38
know this, but one is SSRI
00:29:41
and widespread use
00:29:43
of these psychiatric,
00:29:45
drugs, and it has
00:29:47
black box label on it saying
00:29:49
may cause a homicide on suicidal,
00:29:52
behavior.
00:29:54
And we now have a large part of the
00:29:55
American population on those.
00:29:57
And the other is, you know, other
00:29:59
issues like video games
00:30:01
and my age, the National Institutes
00:30:03
of Health ought to be studying.
00:30:05
What are why is it that
00:30:07
Switzerland, which has comparable
00:30:08
levels of guns,
00:30:11
has not had a mass shooting in 21
00:30:12
years and we have one every 21
00:30:14
hours? Why is that?
00:30:16
That it.
00:30:17
You know, when I was a kid,
00:30:19
kids my age
00:30:21
or bring their rifles to schools for
00:30:22
shooting clubs, nobody ever blink
00:30:24
that that nobody ever started
00:30:27
shooting other children in the
00:30:28
schools. It just it never happened
00:30:30
before. This is unique in
00:30:32
human history, and we need to be
00:30:33
studying that since
00:30:36
1996.
00:30:37
And I age has a policy
00:30:39
not to study the etiology,
00:30:41
the origins of gun violence.
00:30:42
And I'm going to change that.
00:30:48
When it comes to a very direct, no
00:30:50
holds barred conversation about the
00:30:52
Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
00:30:54
there are few who can match
00:30:55
professor Norman Finkelstein, the
00:30:56
controversial American political
00:30:58
scientist and activist who
00:31:00
specializes in Holocaust history.
00:31:02
His writings on how he feels the
00:31:04
word Holocaust has been misused
00:31:06
by Israelis and Jews has put
00:31:08
him firmly on the wrong side of
00:31:09
those who lobby and advocate for
00:31:11
Israel.
00:31:12
And it's all the more surprising
00:31:13
since his parents survived the
00:31:14
Holocaust.
00:31:16
It had been some years since I had
00:31:17
interviewed Professor Finkelstein,
00:31:19
but his criticism of Israel's
00:31:21
leadership is no less feisty,
00:31:23
especially as we discuss
00:31:24
developments that had led to rulings
00:31:26
by the International Criminal Court
00:31:28
and the International Court of
00:31:29
Justice that both pointed fingers
00:31:31
at Israel for its prolonged military
00:31:33
campaign in Gaza following the Hamas
00:31:35
attacks of October 7th, 2023.
00:31:38
As is often the case, the words
00:31:40
Holocaust and genocide remain
00:31:42
very contentious points of
00:31:43
discussion in the mainstream media,
00:31:45
and Professor Finkelstein was keen
00:31:47
to give his perspective.
00:31:53
There are two aspects of this
00:31:55
usage of the word
00:31:57
genocide.
00:31:58
Okay, to Holocaust.
00:32:00
In a moment, there is what
00:32:02
you might call a common
00:32:05
understanding of the term
00:32:07
genocide.
00:32:08
A non-technical turn
00:32:11
on October 9th
00:32:13
when the Israeli
00:32:15
defense minister,
00:32:18
Mr. Gallant,
00:32:20
when he stated
00:32:23
that we are going to deny
00:32:25
any food, fuel,
00:32:28
water or electricity
00:32:31
to the people of Gaza.
00:32:34
And as all of your listeners
00:32:36
know, Gaza
00:32:38
is, as Israel's
00:32:40
former head of the
00:32:42
National Security Council
00:32:44
put it in March
00:32:47
2004.
00:32:48
Gaza is a huge
00:32:50
concentration camp.
00:32:52
It is sealed shut
00:32:55
from the outside world.
00:32:58
Half of its population
00:33:01
are children.
00:33:03
If you deny any food, fuel,
00:33:05
water or electricity to
00:33:07
a captive population sealed
00:33:09
off from the world in the
00:33:11
huge concentration camp,
00:33:13
then you are in fact
00:33:16
issuing a death
00:33:18
sentence on that population.
00:33:22
Prime Minister Netanyahu
00:33:24
announced
00:33:26
that this was going to be from
00:33:28
the beginning, from October 8th.
00:33:30
He announced this
00:33:32
was going to be a very
00:33:34
long military
00:33:36
operation.
00:33:37
If you add those two sentences
00:33:40
up.
00:33:41
No food, fuel, water or electricity
00:33:44
for a very, very long time
00:33:46
now stretching into
00:33:49
seven months.
00:33:50
So it seems to me,
00:33:52
by the common sensical
00:33:54
definition of genocide,
00:33:57
Israel is carrying out a genocide
00:33:59
in Gaza.
00:34:01
As to the second question,
00:34:03
you asked the question of
00:34:05
the use of the term Holocaust.
00:34:09
I would say personally
00:34:12
that the Palestinians
00:34:14
do not need recourse
00:34:18
to the Nazi Holocaust.
00:34:21
Or any need to
00:34:23
appropriate
00:34:25
its terminology
00:34:27
in order to demonstrate
00:34:30
the magnitude of
00:34:32
the horror that's
00:34:34
being inflicted on Gaza.
00:34:37
If you listen, if you read
00:34:39
the reports,
00:34:41
that have been issued by the United
00:34:43
Nations and various agencies,
00:34:46
they describe the conditions
00:34:48
in Gaza as being catastrophic,
00:34:51
disastrous,
00:34:53
apocalyptic.
00:34:54
And in a certain point, several
00:34:57
of the senior officials stated
00:34:59
that we have run
00:35:02
out of words.
00:35:05
So I myself would
00:35:07
prefer to avoid
00:35:09
getting in these meaningless,
00:35:11
idiotic, arguments
00:35:14
about whether or not this is
00:35:17
a Holocaust like the Holocaust
00:35:19
that the Jews,
00:35:22
endured during World War two,
00:35:25
and just stick strictly
00:35:27
to the factual record
00:35:30
as it's been laid out
00:35:32
by responsible,
00:35:34
objective international
00:35:36
agencies.
00:35:37
What's happening in Gaza
00:35:40
is at this point,
00:35:42
and I would like your listeners
00:35:44
to pay heed to
00:35:46
what I'm saying, what's
00:35:48
happening to the people of
00:35:50
Gaza?
00:35:51
According to
00:35:53
numerous senior
00:35:56
UN officials, has
00:35:58
now reached the point.
00:36:00
Not metaphorically,
00:36:02
but literally.
00:36:04
It's reached the point
00:36:06
of beyond
00:36:08
words.
00:36:10
They can't even find
00:36:13
a vocabulary.
00:36:15
To describe what
00:36:17
has been done
00:36:19
to those people by
00:36:21
the State of Israel.
00:36:23
The reason I bring that up is I
00:36:24
wonder what that does in terms
00:36:26
of, you know, people's perceptions,
00:36:28
how it affects the psyche.
00:36:29
Of course, Holocaust is a very
00:36:31
strong word. So if Israel says
00:36:33
what happened on October the 7th is
00:36:34
another Holocaust, people
00:36:36
tend to see it in a in a particular
00:36:38
way. And I'm wondering just briefly
00:36:39
what your perception is on the use
00:36:41
of Holocaust by Israelis and
00:36:42
supporters of Israel in describing
00:36:44
any attack on Israelis.
00:36:46
Israel has systematically,
00:36:50
methodically
00:36:52
cheapened by
00:36:54
overuse inch by
00:36:56
promiscuous usage,
00:36:59
by politically
00:37:01
driven usage
00:37:03
of the term Holocaust
00:37:05
and the actual event of
00:37:07
the Holocaust to the
00:37:09
point that it
00:37:11
has.
00:37:13
I would say in my personal
00:37:14
case, it doesn't even
00:37:17
affect me anymore.
00:37:19
But that's because I've studied
00:37:21
and documented Israel's
00:37:24
political usage
00:37:26
and exploitation of the Nazi
00:37:28
Holocaust for several
00:37:30
decades now
00:37:32
with, I think at this point, for
00:37:34
example, if you
00:37:36
remember, Prime
00:37:39
Minister Netanyahu,
00:37:41
at one point, he said
00:37:43
the whole idea
00:37:45
of the extermination of the
00:37:47
Jews came
00:37:49
not from Hitler,
00:37:52
but came from the mufti
00:37:55
of Jerusalem, the Palestinian
00:37:57
leader at the time.
00:37:59
And now, if you listen
00:38:01
to Gilad
00:38:03
Erdan speeches
00:38:06
at the United Nations,
00:38:08
in which every other
00:38:11
word invokes
00:38:13
the Nazi Holocaust,
00:38:15
saying that Iran is
00:38:17
Hitler, Iran is
00:38:19
out to conquer the world.
00:38:22
Iran is out to exterminate
00:38:24
than Jews.
00:38:27
At this point,
00:38:29
the whole usage
00:38:31
of the term Holocaust
00:38:34
has been reduced to
00:38:37
a complete and total
00:38:39
trivialization
00:38:41
of work Jews endured
00:38:43
during World War two.
00:38:50
On something of a lighter note, I
00:38:52
finally got to sit down with one of
00:38:53
my favorite comedians, Amy Djalili.
00:38:55
And though I'd never laughed so much
00:38:57
during an interview, there were some
00:38:58
serious undertones to the
00:39:00
conversation I had with him.
00:39:02
The talented British Iranian was
00:39:03
happy to talk about how comedians
00:39:05
often end up being advocates for
00:39:07
political causes, whether it be
00:39:09
intentionally or not.
00:39:10
He also addressed how news events
00:39:12
can create stereotypes that affect
00:39:14
the entire population of a country
00:39:15
by default, referring in particular
00:39:18
to Russians and Iranians
00:39:20
due to the prejudices they often
00:39:21
face for simply being from those
00:39:23
nations.
00:39:24
And he offered his views on the
00:39:25
direction Iran might take with a new
00:39:27
president at its helm.
00:39:28
After a helicopter crash took the
00:39:30
life of Ebrahim Raisi
00:39:32
in May.
00:39:38
I think in general.
00:39:40
Certainly when we had the whole
00:39:41
mass, I mean, the
00:39:43
kind of revolution in Iran,
00:39:45
it kind of hit a lot of us in
00:39:47
a very visceral way,
00:39:49
because, again, as a behavior,
00:39:51
I've seen so many guys have
00:39:53
been persecuted.
00:39:55
And I think something triggered in
00:39:56
me that a woman who just had showed
00:39:58
a few strands of hair and
00:40:00
the people protesting against that
00:40:01
would be shot in the face or killed.
00:40:03
Hundreds of people have died.
00:40:05
I think I felt my mom,
00:40:07
I really wanted to help the people
00:40:09
of Iran. So in a sense, the first
00:40:10
thing they do in the revolution is
00:40:11
they cut the internet.
00:40:13
So you've only got a couple of
00:40:14
telegram channels.
00:40:15
The tip of the iceberg is maybe 100
00:40:17
videos come out where maybe
00:40:19
thousands are uploaded.
00:40:21
So I wanted to use my
00:40:23
platform to speak
00:40:25
for the people of Iran so they would
00:40:27
think, say things in Persian and I
00:40:28
would decipher it.
00:40:29
And you can't just press Google
00:40:31
Translate. It doesn't always make
00:40:32
sense. So trying to make it
00:40:34
palatable for a British journalistic
00:40:36
audience. So I was very, very
00:40:38
honored that Emily Maitlis and John
00:40:39
Sopel from the New
00:40:41
Newsagents podcast, they voted
00:40:43
me as one of their people of the
00:40:44
year because they, they just
00:40:46
visit my Twitter feed to
00:40:48
see what's going on in Iran and
00:40:50
actually gave them stories.
00:40:51
It gave them things to actually play
00:40:53
with because they weren't getting
00:40:54
any news.
00:40:55
The only news you get is from the
00:40:56
Islamic regime, which they couldn't
00:40:58
really trust. So in that sense,
00:41:00
I want it to be just use my
00:41:02
social media as a service to the
00:41:03
people of Iran to see what they
00:41:05
would, so they would have a voice.
00:41:06
The irony is, the twist
00:41:08
in the story is that you're a London
00:41:09
lad. Yes.
00:41:10
You know, and you're you're talking
00:41:12
about Iran.
00:41:13
You're not a muslim.
00:41:14
You're a behi. And we'll get into
00:41:15
that in a second as well.
00:41:16
So it's ironic you're representing
00:41:18
probably what people wouldn't
00:41:19
understand really what you're
00:41:20
representing.
00:41:21
Yes, I see a lot of a lot of Muslims
00:41:23
have said to me, look, why don't you
00:41:24
just just become a muslim?
00:41:26
Because we'll use you as a poster
00:41:27
boy and you'll become a millionaire
00:41:29
over, over overnight.
00:41:30
And I've had that with Jews as well.
00:41:31
I've played a couple of Jewish roles
00:41:33
that the last thing I played, Rep
00:41:34
Tevye, I've been Fiddler on the roof
00:41:35
and All the Jews came down from
00:41:37
London to Chichester, where I did
00:41:39
it, because I'll just say, you
00:41:40
should be so.
00:41:41
So they want me to represent, but in
00:41:42
a sense I am representing because
00:41:44
I'm of the Semitic race, and
00:41:46
I do believe that we are we
00:41:48
are a race. We we have a certain
00:41:49
kind of DNA and I'm
00:41:51
happy to represent any minority.
00:41:54
But, you know, I'm still I am I
00:41:55
am who I am, but I also have this.
00:41:58
I suppose as you get older, you just
00:41:59
have this sense of moral
00:42:02
obligation to stand
00:42:04
up for the weak and the oppressed.
00:42:05
And if I can do that in a very small
00:42:07
way, then that's using my social
00:42:09
media in a good way.
00:42:10
I love the the sketch.
00:42:11
You did one of your comedy stand ups
00:42:13
about being Iranian, Iranian,
00:42:15
Iranian from the UK.
00:42:16
Yeah. And having to say you were
00:42:18
Ukrainian when you met me.
00:42:20
And this is one of the problems in,
00:42:21
especially in the US.
00:42:22
And we both spend a lot of time
00:42:24
there.
00:42:25
There's a blanket judgment on
00:42:27
people from Iran.
00:42:27
Yes. It's a lack of understanding.
00:42:29
It happens with the Arab world, with
00:42:30
Muslims and everything else.
00:42:31
How do you feel when you see the,
00:42:33
you know, a whole race, a whole
00:42:34
people, if you like, a nationality,
00:42:36
gets tarnished with this brush.
00:42:38
And I think that's something, for
00:42:40
example, from the very early on,
00:42:41
after October 7th,
00:42:43
I did notice that there were certain
00:42:45
things, that
00:42:47
there were talking about people in
00:42:48
Gaza all being human animals
00:42:50
and then saying, we're going to
00:42:52
cut the electricity and cut the food
00:42:54
and water. So I just said, you know,
00:42:56
this is this is what happens.
00:42:57
Everyone gets tarnished with the
00:42:59
same brush. And I was just saying,
00:43:01
let's not dehumanize people.
00:43:03
And then a lot of my Jewish friends
00:43:04
said, look, they're talking about
00:43:05
Hamas. And I was like saying, yeah,
00:43:06
but it's not that nuance is not
00:43:08
being made clear. They're saying
00:43:09
everyone in Gaza is no one's an
00:43:11
innocent in Gaza, and they're all
00:43:13
human animals in Gaza.
00:43:14
And that that, that dehumanization
00:43:17
leads to violence and leads to
00:43:19
innocent people dying.
00:43:20
So I think that is
00:43:22
always the
00:43:24
sense of nuance on social media
00:43:26
and everywhere.
00:43:27
This is the thing we have to guard
00:43:28
against human beings being
00:43:29
dehumanizing, because I
00:43:31
sense it because I'm Iranian
00:43:33
and people assume I'm one thing, but
00:43:35
actually they don't see that.
00:43:36
Actually, I come from a faith that
00:43:38
believes in the oneness of mankind
00:43:40
and the unity of religions.
00:43:41
But you know, the guy stamping a
00:43:43
passport doesn't know that.
00:43:44
It just sees Iranian guy and he
00:43:46
sees someone not to be
00:43:48
trust. I wouldn't say that I'm a
00:43:49
terrorist, but it's just like,
00:43:51
what's your what's your father's
00:43:52
name? Ahmed.
00:43:53
Okay. That's my father's name.
00:43:55
Okay. What does he do?
00:43:56
And then when I ask we about what my
00:43:57
father did as well, he was he made
00:43:59
shoes really?
00:44:00
Well, you know, and they ask these
00:44:02
questions about my dad, especially.
00:44:03
As there was a shoe bomber.
00:44:04
There was a shoe, but me and the
00:44:05
executive was a shoe bomber.
00:44:06
So that's a red flag to say.
00:44:07
But to shoes, it's
00:44:09
a whole can of worms.
00:44:11
So I think that's the thing that we
00:44:13
have to, as someone who's
00:44:15
working in the West, just by
00:44:17
doing a show and everyone laughing
00:44:18
and enjoying the thing.
00:44:19
Okay. All right.
00:44:20
That's kind of shifted my,
00:44:22
my, my particular viewpoint of those
00:44:24
people, because comedy is such a
00:44:26
powerful thing. If you can make
00:44:27
people laugh about your culture.
00:44:30
I remember feeling very
00:44:32
strongly about
00:44:34
Russian people. You know, when
00:44:35
Russia invaded Ukraine,
00:44:37
I made a.
00:44:38
Big thing about.
00:44:39
We have to just.
00:44:40
Hey, let's not dehumanize all
00:44:42
Russians just because of Putin.
00:44:43
So I was doing Russian jokes in
00:44:45
my show. I said, here are some jokes
00:44:48
about Russians.
00:44:49
And actually, I remember I heard
00:44:50
this joke, maybe think a while.
00:44:51
Russians have a great sense of
00:44:53
humor. And the joke was that you
00:44:54
can't. During communism, you
00:44:55
couldn't buy a car unless you,
00:44:57
like, booked it ten years in
00:44:59
advance.
00:45:00
And then you get the you get the
00:45:01
car. Ten years later, he goes,
00:45:02
congratulations, pick up your car in
00:45:03
ten years time.
00:45:04
And the guy goes, is that morning or
00:45:06
afternoon? Because what difference
00:45:07
is ten year old like the plumber
00:45:08
coming in the morning? That's I
00:45:09
that's a great job.
00:45:11
It's a Russian joke.
00:45:12
So even the Russians can make fun
00:45:14
of their situation.
00:45:16
So I think it's very important to
00:45:18
realize that comedy is a great
00:45:19
leveler. Comedy makes you
00:45:22
feel much closer towards a people,
00:45:24
a culture, because it
00:45:25
makes sense of everything, because
00:45:26
it works on a human level.
00:45:28
It's very hard because of course in
00:45:30
Iran, when everything is kind of
00:45:31
restricted, it's very difficult
00:45:33
for people to express themselves.
00:45:35
And of course, you had mentioned
00:45:36
the, the, the protests.
00:45:39
I wonder, do you feel that anything
00:45:40
might change since, President
00:45:43
Ibrahim Raisi was, yeah, I
00:45:45
still denial.
00:45:46
He writes Raisi died in a helicopter
00:45:48
crash. And, you know, it's
00:45:50
something that made worldwide news.
00:45:52
And people were doing jokes about
00:45:54
that. It's a difficult one
00:45:56
to talk about with change, because
00:45:57
people have always wanted change
00:45:59
for the Pope from literally
00:46:01
a couple of months after the Islamic
00:46:03
revolution of 1979, people were
00:46:05
calling for change straight away.
00:46:07
They didn't think this was going to
00:46:08
be a hardline Islamic
00:46:10
kind of, hardline
00:46:12
extremist revolution.
00:46:14
So there was a lot of pushback that
00:46:16
I think change is inevitable
00:46:18
because we're living in a world
00:46:19
where just with TikTok,
00:46:21
I mean, the I know certain
00:46:23
social medias are
00:46:25
are controlled, but when young
00:46:27
people are seeing that people are
00:46:28
living a free life and you don't
00:46:29
have the same freedoms inside
00:46:31
Iran, the young people are going to
00:46:33
protest the arguments.
00:46:34
So what is this?
00:46:36
So it change is inevitable.
00:46:38
The big question is will that
00:46:40
regime be changed or will the
00:46:42
regime themselves change?
00:46:43
From what we see when
00:46:45
they're cracking down even more, I
00:46:46
don't see any change coming from
00:46:48
that particular regime.
00:46:54
I want to wrap up this retrospective
00:46:56
on some of the shows that we've
00:46:57
brought you over the past six
00:46:58
months, with a look back at the
00:46:59
interview I had on fairly short
00:47:01
notice with the charismatic and
00:47:03
giant boxing champion Tyson Fury.
00:47:05
He was in Riyadh to fight the tough
00:47:07
Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk
00:47:09
and a much anticipated bout
00:47:11
nicknamed the Ring of Fire,
00:47:13
a match he ultimately lost.
00:47:14
Although their promoters were quick
00:47:15
to set up a rematch for the end of
00:47:17
2024.
00:47:19
I ended my interview with Tyson by
00:47:20
asking him ten quickfire questions.
00:47:23
The first that he answered with no
00:47:24
hesitation was if you could
00:47:26
go up against any boxer in history,
00:47:28
who would it be?
00:47:34
Tyson Fury.
00:47:36
You go up against yourself, I the
00:47:38
mirror.
00:47:39
I don't play against myself.
00:47:41
So no one else. All right.
00:47:42
Who'd be second, then?
00:47:44
I'm not Alexander.
00:47:45
Isaac. Okay, well, that's that's on
00:47:47
the cards now, for sure.
00:47:48
So I'm getting my dream fight that
00:47:50
we've seen Conor McGregor enter the
00:47:52
world of movies. If you're in a
00:47:53
movie, which character would you
00:47:54
play? What sort of character?
00:47:56
What I player who would play me?
00:47:58
Well, let's start with who you would
00:47:59
play.
00:48:00
Who are you?
00:48:02
I played myself in the movie of
00:48:04
various life.
00:48:05
Is there anyone who could play you?
00:48:06
The probably only one person.
00:48:08
Tyson Fury. No.
00:48:09
Oh. Denzel Washington.
00:48:11
Oh, that's a great match.
00:48:12
Yeah, because he's very articulate
00:48:14
and very, very, very good acting.
00:48:16
What makes it what makes a good
00:48:18
boxer? Tyson.
00:48:19
A good boxer is someone who can
00:48:20
think on a dime.
00:48:22
Someone who has all the
00:48:24
slices of the cake.
00:48:25
Mentality, physicality, brutality,
00:48:28
all of that stuff.
00:48:29
Will you become the first
00:48:30
billionaire boxer?
00:48:32
Billionaire boxer?
00:48:33
Not interested.
00:48:34
You know. Utterly.
00:48:34
The money was important.
00:48:35
Oh, the money's important.
00:48:36
You get paid for what you do.
00:48:37
We're all here because we're getting
00:48:39
paid, aren't we?
00:48:39
I thought I'd heard somewhere you'd
00:48:41
said that you'd be the first
00:48:42
billionaire. Oh, no, no, I was.
00:48:43
I don't think I've said I'm going to
00:48:44
be the first billionaire boxer.
00:48:45
Well, listen, I'm getting paid well
00:48:46
for what I do, and I'm.
00:48:48
I'm very grateful.
00:48:48
I'm very, very happy with my wages.
00:48:51
So next question. Where would you
00:48:52
rather be? New York or Morecambe,
00:48:54
Lancashire.
00:48:56
More compensation.
00:48:57
I, I, I could be in
00:48:59
New York if I wanted to be.
00:49:01
Mike Tyson is approaching 60
00:49:03
and about to make a comeback with,
00:49:04
with Jake Paul. Any chance you lace
00:49:06
your gloves up at that age?
00:49:09
He never say never.
00:49:11
I suppose if he getting paid a lot
00:49:12
of money and, you know, some of you
00:49:14
enjoy to do, then who is anyone
00:49:15
to say don't do it?
00:49:17
You know, I'm sure Mike enjoys what
00:49:19
you're doing and he's having fun.
00:49:20
So who am I to say do I
00:49:22
don't?
00:49:23
A couple of quickies off the W head.
00:49:24
Who has a better chance in the ring?
00:49:25
Batman? Superman?
00:49:27
Batman?
00:49:28
Well, you dressed up as it was.
00:49:29
Yeah.
00:49:31
And what about Bruce Lee and Jackie
00:49:32
Chan? I'd say Bruce, like.
00:49:34
Okay. And Frank Warren and
00:49:36
his long time rival, Barry Hearn.
00:49:38
I'd say Frank Warren.
00:49:40
All right, last one then.
00:49:41
We've heard some of your songs,
00:49:42
including American Pie.
00:49:44
Yeah. And, Sweet Carolina.
00:49:46
Yeah. Which is the next one you're
00:49:47
going to do?
00:49:48
You'll have to find out Saturday
00:49:49
night. Look forward to it.
00:49:50
Thank you very much. Thank you very.
00:49:51
Thank you so much.
00:49:52
Thank you.
00:49:58
And there we have to bid you
00:49:59
farewell. Thank you very much for
00:50:01
your support and interest in our
00:50:02
programing over the past half a
00:50:03
year. We hope to bring you much more
00:50:05
in the coming months.
00:50:07
Until next time for me and the team,
00:50:09
a warm goodbye.
At the start of this year, Riz Khan set off on a mission to conduct interviews with some of the most prominent and interesting people around, as well as those directly connected with the news of the day.
He sought interesting angles and perspectives from people who are making waves or encouraging the world to think differently.
A little over six months later, Riz Khan has brought you more than 70 interviews with a cast including Bill gates, Norman Finkelstein, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Andrew Tate, Tyson Fury, Omid Djalili and Stewart Copeland.
And in the months ahead, he will be bringing you an even more diverse collection of charismatic contributors.
Show guests:
Bassem Youssef - Egyptian-American comedian
Andrew Tate - Social media personality
Bill Gates – Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation co-chair
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Independent US presidential candidate
Norman Finkelstein – American political scientist
Omid Djalili – British-Iranian comedian
Tyson Fury – British professional boxer
Note: The captions in the above video are autogenerated.
