EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,089 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- MNMaajid Nawaz
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- NANarrator
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
That story fascinates me, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
The JFK story is like, that has been Oliver Stone's thing. I mean, he's been following that story, he's been chasing it down. We talked about on the podcast that his film, JFK, was essentially 30 years after the assassination, and then this documentary that he just released is 30 years after his film. So he's been chasing this thing down.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
I should catch the documentary, I've said-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very good.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
... I've seen the film. I should watch the documentary.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very good. It's on Showtime.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
But it fascinates me. Um, I mean generally as a ... W- we're, we're live right? We're recording this?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
So generally, the assassination of presidents, it's something which, uh, you know, I've been in prison with people that assassinated Sadat and it's just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, really?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Yeah, these sorts of ... Th- this intrigue at the top and the plots, um, I actually befriended them, um, I've got a copy of the, of a Quran at home signed by one of them as a gift to me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
A parting gift from, from prison. But, uh, the kind of intrigue, when you get to that level of intrigue at the top, nothing is ever what it seems, man. Nothing is ever what it seems.
- JRJoe Rogan
I can only imagine.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
It's gotta be a stressful way to live. Imagine being a world leader.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Yeah, of course.
- JRJoe Rogan
And all the, the shit you're dealing with and potential assassination and coup plots and ...
- MNMaajid Nawaz
And, and part of how you operate has to be one thing, one face you present to the public, and another thing-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
... is what you're really actually doing because you've got all these other people, uh, especially today with the nature of information wars, attempting to subvert what you're trying to do, uh, based on your overt actions. And so you have to truly, uh, hide what you're really actually up to, you know, it's g- it's difficult to navigate that terrain.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, not only that, but when you operate like that, if you're constantly operating in this sort of deception vein, like it's gotta be hard to know what's true and what's not true because you're kind of ... You're full of shit.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Yeah, very. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
When you're full of shit, I think it becomes more difficult to recognize what's true and what's not true.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
(laughs) And you don't get to that position unless you're full of shit in the first place, right? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You have to compromise, like they don't let you in.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
No, man.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Oof. …
- MNMaajid Nawaz
part of the University of London. It's considered, um, one of the leading, uh, kind of radical left-wing colleges in the UK, but for Arabic it's actually one of the best in the c- in, in the world. And I was doing law and Arabic at SOAS, and for my Arabic degree I needed to go to an Arab country for my, uh, language year, my third year. So I chose Egypt. So that was my ostensible reason for going to Egypt. But actually while I was there, I began recruiting again for my organization. The difference between Egypt and Pakistan, Denmark and Britain is Egypt's a, a dictatorship, still is till today, whereas Pakistan wasn't, um, and of course Denmark and Britain weren't. So in Egypt where I tried to start, you know, start building these cells, uh, recruit people to my organization, uh, I arrived one day before the 9/11 attacks not knowing, of course, that was happening, and so that, that changed the security paradigm for the whole world. If you remember Bush saying that, uh ... sorry, Tony Blair saying the rules of the game have changed. Uh, once 9/11 happened, people like us who were not, uh, you know, terrorists in the kind of bombing sense, right? Um, so that I ... that's just the difference between, say, an Islamist, um, to briefly define it, somebody who wants to impose a version of Islam over society as opposed to just the religion of Islam, which is a faith. An Islamist I define, and people can differ with these definitions, just my definition, is someone who wants to impose a version of Islam over society, impose a dogma, yeah? Um, but our methods, our means were not violent. They were more like infiltrating the government and trying to take over from within. But once, uh, 9/11 attacks happened, the security kind of, uh, rules of the game changed. Uh, the Egyptian regime came after us. There was a bit of a, a cat and mouse chase. I was on the run for a bit in Egypt. But, uh, eventually they raided my house at sort of roughly 3:00 AM and they had, uh, machine guns and grenades and everything, came in and I was awake at the time because I had a, uh, I was married and I had a one-year-old. Well, I have a one-year-old. He was one at the time. I, I have a son from that previous marriage and I was trying to put him back to sleep. Uh, they ripped him from my arms, um, they blindfolded me and they, uh, put me in this van, uh, took me to their he- state security headquarters and, uh, the, uh ... A lot of, uh ... I can go into some of the detail, but a lot of atrocities then happened to us. I mean, we were, we went through quite a horrific experience in the dungeons of Egypt. I mean, the first thing they did is they took me up in Alexandria where I was living, they took me up to the top of a building, blindfolded and, and stood me on the edge of the, of the roof, uh, to try and make me believe that they were going to push me over. And I had to stand there very still-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
... to see if they were gonna ... It takes a bit of (laughs) it takes a bit out of you, you know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
You, you can't see anything and you're standing at the ... And I could feel the wind around me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
But that was just a warm up. That was for the purpose of softening me up so that I could, I would believe that they're prepared to do anything so that I'm ready to talk. So once they put me there, then they took me down and they took me into an o- to see an officer. See an officer, I was blindfolded but to, to be confronted by a, um, intelligence officer from the state security and he asked me my story. And we were trained to say one thing in that context as Islamist revolutionaries, and the answer was very straightforward and it's what I said. Uh, I was v- uh, very, uh, programmed, right? So I said, "My name is Maajid Nawaz and I'm a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir from Britain and that's all I've got to say to you." And that's what I said to the officer. So he laughed, but he, he's heard that before from us. There's a long history of this group in Egypt.... so, uh, he said, "All right, let's see what you do next." And then, uh, they put us in this van, drove us through the desert, still blindfolded. Uh, took us to, uh, Cairo, uh, and they took us to the, um, this building called, uh, Al-Gehaz, Al-Gehaz Eminetdola, which is the headquarters of the state security, internal state security, uh, for all of, uh, Egypt. Took us underground and this is where the real nightmare began. Uh, tied our hands behind our backs with rags, um, we were bodies piled on top of each other on the floor in this, I don't know what it was. I call it a dungeon because it was underground in a basement-like structure, and then, uh, that's when the screaming began. They, they gave us all numbers. I was 42 and, um, from, from, from that day when we were... This is now, I think, day two, uh, from that evening, they began a roll call. We weren't allowed to sleep, by the way. If we slept and we didn't answer our name, we were beaten. And they be- they went through the numbers in chronological order, and so I would hear number one, he was called up, taken into a separate room, tortured, and we would hear his screams, uh, electrocuted, and then they'd say, "Call number two." Number one is brought back, collapses in his spot, brings number two, number three, and they go through, everyone is being tortured one by one.
- NANarrator
(sighs)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
And of course, I have to wait my turn, 42.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
So I've (laughs) I've heard 41 other people. So number 41 who's next to me, there's this- there's a- there's a moment I write about in Radical, which is the story of all of this. It's my autobiography, it's called Radical. And, uh, this poor guy, I, I still don't know who he is till this day. But he turned to me and he was crying because he's n- his turn was next. And he said, "Help me." (sighs) I didn't know what to do, I mean, I'm in the same position. So I just read some passages of the Quran to him. There's a, there's a passage about a boy, um... Because Muslims believe everything, you know, in the, in the, um, Old and New Testament, we believe that's from the same tradition, the same God. And a bit like, the best way I can explain it for an American or a world audience is just as Christianity views Judaism as part of their tradition, Islam views Christianity and Judaism as part of our tradition, right? So there's a story in the Quran about a Christian boy who tried to, uh, uh, proselytize for monotheism and this pagan king didn't like him, and he put him in a ditch, and he burned everyone in this ditch. It's called Surah Al-Buruj, The Story of The Trench, um, and it's about suffering in the face of truth. And so I just started, uh, reciting this passage to him. (Arabic) Was samaa' idhah til-buruj. I started reciting this passage, um, a- and there's a very specific way of reciting the Quran. It soothed him. Um, all I remember him saying to me was, "You're a good man. Thank you." And then he was taken, his number was called, he was taken. And then eventually, he was, he collapsed. He was brought back and he was just unconscious and then my number was called. So I had to walk, imagine that, I had to walk towards this, uh, uh, room where they're gonna torture me. And, um, the guy said, uh, "Right, you're gonna have to speak." And I had, still had my hands tied behind my, uh, my back. But I had managed to, to get the rags loose and I'm not the kind of guy that's gonna... I mean, I, I, honestly I, at that moment, I decided I'd rather die than be humiliated in this way and, and then also then, uh, uh, telling him a story about my friends, you know? So because my hands were loose, I, honestly, I decided I'd, I'd rather just attack the guy and then they're gonna have to shoot me dead. Um, but then something unexpected happened, um, there were four of us from the UK. (inhales deeply) Uh, instead of electrocuting me, he, uh, electrocuted my friend who was also in the group with me, who's from London, who was also in Egypt. Uh, they tortured him in front of me and, uh, then he said, "Right, your turn. You have to speak. Tell us why you're here. Tell us what, what you're doing here in Egypt." I gave him the answer I, I had, the stock answer I gave in Alexandria. I said, "My name is Maajid Nawaz, I'm a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir from Britain. Do what you want." And, uh, by this time my hands were loose, but I was still pretending they were still tied and honestly, Joe, I, like, people are going to think this is, um, this is barbaric, but y- you haven't been in that situation to know what happens to the brain. But, uh, I took the view that if they touched me, I'm just gonna bite down on his neck and they're gonna have to shoot me dead because I was just going to basically just, just attack the guy with my teeth. That's all I had. Uh, lucky for me, uh, for whatever reason he said, "Right, I'm gonna give you 24 more hours to think about your answer. Go back to your spot and if you, if you don't answer, you saw what we did to your friend and we're going to do that to you." Now this is the fourth day, so they took me back to my place, uh, and then, um, I was kind of, there was some hints that they were going to rape me or whatever, um, talking about, "Oh, this one looks..." You know, talking about my physical features and, "Maybe we should treat him in a different way." And then I think they were trying to scare me with that too. And they, they have, by the way, they, they were rape- they were raping wi- wives in there, they were torturing children in front of their fathers, uh, just to try and force the father to confess. I mean, there's, just imagine no rules, yeah? Anything is possible and nobody's ever gonna find out about it. Now, lucky for me, that was the fourth day. The British Consul is meant to make contact within 48 hours, so four days, they're already late, but however they managed to do it on that fourth day, because I, I was a student of Arabic and I could understand, I heard a phone ring in the dungeon and one of the officers picked the phone up and I could hear him speaking in Arabic and he said, "Yeah, the foreigners are here with me." And then I could hear him say, "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Today, sir." And that's when I realized that, you know what, we might be taken out of here. So, um, I, it was, it was the case. On the f- uh, that evening, so I was due to go back to that officer and he'd given me the warning, but before I was due back, they sent some, uh, pickup truck, military truck to come and collect the four of us that were from the UK and they took us from there. And I imagine the ambassador was making a big stink. They took us from there and instead took us to a prison called Mazra'at al Har prison, which is where I eventually met the assassins of Anwar Sadat, the former prime minister and former president, and they put us into solitary confinement for three and a half months roughly.
- NANarrator
(sighs)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
The Egyptians we left behind there, the Egyptians continued, they continued treating them in a really brutal way, those that were arrested with us. But we were then put into solitary confinement, I was then, as a result, I was never electrocuted. My friend, as I said, was in front of me. He was in the next cell to me.And, uh, after... So that cell that we were put into solitary confinement, there was no, there was no toilet, there was no bed, bedding or anything. It was just a bare concrete cell. We had to, uh... Forgive me, but, you know, I suppose this is your show, we can speak like this. But we had to shit on the floor, we had to piss on the floor, and then they'd come 15 minutes break, they'd come with a bucket, and they'd just wash it down and then we're back on that, in that same cell.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Uh, 300... Three months or so later, we were charged. Um, I remember the charges still in Arabic. I can still quote them for you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
The s- uh, the first charge was intima , which means membership, uh, lijma'atin ghair mushrooa , of a, of a prohibited organization. The second charge was tarwijb bil qawli wal kitaba , propagation by speech and writing (laughs) -
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
... of banned ideas. And, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Banned ideas.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
It was beautiful because that's what convinced Amnesty International to adopt us as prisoners of conscience, the charges. Now, why that's beautiful is imagine I'm... By the way, ah, forgot to say, so I was 24 years old by this time, yeah? Imagine an angry Muslim, 24, at the peak of the war on terror, yeah? Iraq hadn't yet been invaded, but 9/11 had happened. I hated the West, I hated what I called the kuffar, infidels, and I existed to overthrow the Western order, and I was prepared to die for that, I was prepared to be tortured for it. And along come Amne- Amnesty International and they say, "He doesn't deserve to be in jail for his ideas unless he's committed a crime," and we hadn't committed any crime in Egypt. All we were doing was speaking about these ideas, these kind of revolutionary ideas. And because the, um, Egyptian, uh, constitution had been suspended under an emergency, uh, since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, by the guys I eventually met in that same prison, the Egyptian constitution does protect ideas, but it had been suspended in the name of an emergency for over 20 years. Uh, and I'd like to, when we get to the current day, come back to the, the nature of how emergencies work when they suspend your rights, okay? So this is they'd suspended the rights of Egyptians and it was meant to be temporary, and that temporary situation lasted over 20 years, which is why we ended up in jail for our ideas.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was the initial emergency?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
The assassination of the president.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, so because of that emergency-
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they used that to-
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... justify...
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Which I can assure you assassinates, uh, assassinating a president is a lot more deadly than the IFR for COVID, which is 0.096%, similar to the flu. So that was a real emergency where a president was killed, and, uh, it was meant to be temporary. The state of emergency existed for over 20 years. It's why they were allowed to treat us in that way, because they had suspended the rights of their citizens as a permanent thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Wow. …
- MNMaajid Nawaz
reading everything I could get my hands on. We were eventually let out of, uh, solitary confinement, and I, always having been somebody that appreciated intellectual discussion, I saw around me the who's who of political prisoners in Mazen Al-Ator Prison, and we had everything from communists and socialists, we had Muslims who had converted to Christianity, we had Christians who'd converted to Islam, we had jihadists who'd assassinated the president, and we had Israeli spies who were being accused of being Israeli spies. Everyone was in this jail.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
And we had a joke that under Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, if you change your mind from anything to anything, it's a criminal offense.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Because it didn't make sense, right? You had a Muslim convert to Christianity, throw him in jail. Christian converted to Islam, throw him in jail.
- JRJoe Rogan
For, j- for conversion?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Everything. Uh, any... You change your mind (laughs) on anything and you'd be in jail.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're unreliable.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
No. So you had jihadis-
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what is the logic?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
(laughs) Well, that's the, that's the funny thing. Mubarak didn't want anyone to think.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Right? Just don't think. Just obey.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when he heard that you're just tossing and turning too much in your mind, he just throw you in jail?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Throw you in jail.
- JRJoe Rogan
That guy's too sketchy. Throw him in jail.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
I mean, think about it. You've got- you've got people that assassinated-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
... Sadat, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Why did they assassinate him? In 1981, Anwar Sadat made a peace treaty with Israel. Egypt and Israel's peace is because of that president. And the- and the- and the- it was military guys that assassinated him. Uh, and they did it because they believed that was treachery. They didn't want peace with Israel, so they assassinated him, right? So you can understand, okay, you've got Jihadis who believe making peace with Israel is treachery. They're in jail. But on the other hand, this guy that... I was with in prison as well, and he'd been accused of being an Israeli agent. Threw him in jail too (laughs) .
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
And the guys that prosecuted and convicted the assassins of Sadat, right, they were in jail with the assassins of Sadat 20 years later.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the danger of dictatorship-
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Everyone ends up in prison.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because you literally can just point at anybody you want and go, "Lock 'em up."
- MNMaajid Nawaz
So I used that opportunity to speak to everyone. I had the advantage that we were young. They were like... The Sa- the Sadat assassins had been in prison for longer than I'd been alive.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
I was 24. They'd been in jail 25 years. So we looked at them and thought, "Wisdom." Now, these guys had also changed their ideology in that time. They basically started, uh, advocating for a more peaceful approach.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
At the time, I…
- MNMaajid Nawaz
At the time, I was the only one publicly speaking about any of this. And so they were all desperate to hear from me.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause you were someone who was radicalized at one point-
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in time and then converted over. And they trusted you, or-
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Every single one of these was an invitation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
I didn't ask for any of these invitations.
- JRJoe Rogan
And how did they know of you?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Uh, I... Uh, when I left, uh, Hizb ut-Tahrir, um... So it's, it's interesting because we forget what the media world used to look like with the internet today.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
I did all the kind of, you know, the prime time. So I did, in the UK, BBC Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Here, I did CBS 60 Minutes, um, Larry King. So, what used to be the prime time shows (laughs) . They're not anymore, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
But, um, so people would, would, would see this guy on their, on their, you know, on the CBS 60 Minutes. Like, "Who the hell's this guy who's just like... He's been in jail, he's now speaking against this stuff?" So I would be invited. I was invited to Bush's home.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Um, in fact, I-
- JRJoe Rogan
What, what was that like?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Well, I'll tell you a story because, uh, he sat me down and like you, you did, he said, "Well, tell me about yourself." And I got to the point of, um, when I said, "Oh, they tortured us in prison," and he said, um... I opened my book with this story, by the way. He says, "Stop right there." I said, "All right. Okay." If you remember, Bush was... That whole waterboarding and redefining torture, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
So he says, "Stop right there." So I stopped, and he looked at me in the eyes and said, "How do you define torture?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
(laughs) So-
- JRJoe Rogan
What was your impression of him as a person?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Well, I looked him back square in the eyes. I said, "You know, electrocution on the teeth and genitalia." And he said, "Yeah, that's torture. Carry on."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Now, the interesting thing with Bush, he's very... I found him to be very personable. But then, you know, that really doesn't mean much when you're in, in charge of a country that invades another country. But one-on-one, he was very easy to talk to.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did he seem slow?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not at all, right?
- 1:00:00 – 1:11:28
Right. …
- MNMaajid Nawaz
there's a crime to answer for, you put them on trial. But what you haven't done, what America hasn't done, is say, "You know what? I don't give a damn. They might be American, but they can stay in Syria." And even if they're sentenced in Syria, say they finish their time, where do they go?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
So that's what's happened, is nobody... So there's camps, there are entire camps, they're just internship camps, concentration camps or intern camps, like Al-Hawl, Camp Al-Hawl in Syria, where there's w- women and children, kids from babies, and they're growing up, and they're having, they're giving birth in these prisons, and they're just, no one's charged them or convicted them of anything.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they're essentially being raised in these prisons?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
They are born and raised in prisons.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Now, you go from Guantanamo to that, and I'm gonna bring you to another stage, right? We're talking about the Overton window of acceptability shifting. We've got a Home Secretary in the UK right now called Priti Patel. She then suggested (clears throat) that, what do you do with, um, these boat people that come over from France, and they're trying to cross the English Channel, undocumented migrants, they're landing in Britain. What do you do with them? She said, "Oh, I know what we can do with them. Arrest them, and then put them in a camp in Rwanda." So you've gone from, we've gone from arbitrarily interning Jihadists to arbitrarily interning their wives and their children to now arbitrarily interning anyone who's undocumented in these camps. That's not the kind of world I want to see going forward. It's, it, it's like that movie Elysium, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
That's not the kind of world I want to see going forward. So this is the kind of thing that I was upset with in that machine, and I'm trying to work in the machine to say, "What you guys are doing is making the problem worse with this kind of behavior."... power, brute force does not fix your problems.
- JRJoe Rogan
And these conversations with Bush, in particular, like what was that like? How did he respond to this?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
So, so, w- Bush was one meeting. And after that one meeting, I was able to speak to the administration. And as I say, so for the last two years, I felt, we felt we were beginning to make progress. Obama gets in, and then they wanna reinvent the wheel. And a lot of people, when they look at Obama, they think, "A great president." Again, I'm not gonna mince my words, and I don't want anyone to say, "Ah, see, Maajid is this or that." Guys, I am ... (laughs) You gotta understand, I didn't even come from this system. I wanted to overthrow the whole thing, Obama and Bush together. I was anti-democracy, full stop. So this is not about me supporting Bush, supporting Obama, supporting Trump, supporting anyone. I'm looking at this from the outside and seeing what's going wrong vis-a-vis this specific debate, yeah? And speaking objectively about it, regardless of whether you're left wing or right wing. So Obama comes in, and this man launches more drone strikes than Bush, has a kill list which Bush never had, that is unaccountable. That kill list he made, including American citizens, was not accountable to Congress. So on the, on the physical war side, he basically did even more than Bush did. With his assassinations, with his, um, NSA spying, uh, with his, um, military appra- approach to solving problems with his drones, more drone strikes than Bush ever conducted. He just ratcheted up the military side of this. And, uh, we were then ... When Obama b- became president, my work was, for a long time, ostracized from the Obama administration because of this point. And then where he should've done something, like the rise of ISIS, completely useless.
- JRJoe Rogan
So y- th- your work was ostracized because you were working towards peace and a less brutal approach, and he was conducting drone strikes and-
- MNMaajid Nawaz
They didn't wanna hear what I just said to you, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... NSA surveillance. They just didn't wanna hear that.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
They didn't wanna hear it.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they, but they knew your position.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And d- did you eventually get to meet with him?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
Not him.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not him?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MNMaajid Nawaz
I met w-, I met w-, I met Hillary Clinton, I met Madeleine Albright, but I didn't meet Obama.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you ever meet anybody, they smell like sulfur?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
What? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Any of those people?
- MNMaajid Nawaz
(laughs) What?
- JRJoe Rogan
Where you're like, "They're evil."
- MNMaajid Nawaz
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"This is an evil person."
Episode duration: 3:05:21
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Transcript of episode ARaqe-0MKmI
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