Bassem Youssef: Israel-Palestine, Gaza, Hamas, Middle East, Satire & Fame | Lex Fridman Podcast #424

1. 0:00 – 1:21

   Introduction

   1. BYBassem Youssef0:00

      If I hate you, that's great, but if I have a story to support that hate, ah, that's even better.

   2. LFLex Fridman0:04

      Uh, one of your favorite words, "jihad." (laughs)

   3. BYBassem Youssef0:09

      (laughs) That's my favorite hobbies.

   4. LFLex Fridman0:10

      (laughs)

   5. BYBassem Youssef0:10

      It doesn't matter now who do you vote into power. They will not listen to you. They would listen to the people who paid them to be there. When the military came in, people were walking to me, like pointing their fingers, like, "Don't speak about Sisi. Don't speak about the army. Huh? We love you now, but don't..." They would like that. So I called Jon Stewart just like, "I don't know what to do." And he said the most interesting thing ever and said, "If you're afraid of something, make fun about the fact that you're afraid of it."

   6. LFLex Fridman0:43

      The following is a conversation with Bassem Youssef, a legendary Egyptian-American comedian, the so-called Jon Stewart of the Middle East, who fearlessly satirized those in power, even when his job and life were on the line. Bassem is a beautiful human being. It was truly a pleasure for me to get to know him and to have this fun, fascinating, and challenging conversation. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Bassem Youssef.

2. 1:21 – 31:49

   Oct 7

   1. LFLex Fridman1:21

      Your wife is half Palestinian, and I've heard you say that you've been trying to kill her.

   2. BYBassem Youssef1:26

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman1:26

      But she keeps using the kids as human shields.

   4. BYBassem Youssef1:28

      Yes.

   5. LFLex Fridman1:28

      So have you considered negotiating a ceasefire?

   6. BYBassem Youssef1:31

      Well, the thing is every day, every minute of the day in a married life is a negotiation. Everything can blow up into a full-scale war, starting from a simple sentence like, "Good morning, what should we do with the kids today?"

   7. LFLex Fridman1:47

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BYBassem Youssef1:47

      "What should we do with that piece of furniture?" Any sentence can lead you to heaven or to hell in the same time.

   9. LFLex Fridman1:54

      So you do negotiate with terrorists?

   10. BYBassem Youssef1:56

       Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%.

   11. LFLex Fridman1:56

       You must.

   12. BYBassem Youssef1:57

       Yeah. And for her, I am her terrorist too, so (laughs) it's equal. (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman2:00

       (laughs) Terrorists on both sides. On a more serious note, when you found out about the attacks of October 7th, what went through your mind?

   14. BYBassem Youssef2:08

       If I'm allowed to use a curse word-

   15. LFLex Fridman2:10

       (laughs)

   16. BYBassem Youssef2:10

       ... I was like-

   17. LFLex Fridman2:11

       As many as possible.

   18. BYBassem Youssef2:12

       ... I was like, "Oh, shit." Part of my standup comedy is I describe a situation where I was in a restaurant with producers, and there was a bombing two blocks away in Chelsea, New York, in 2000, 2016. And of course, this is the like, "Damn, what's gonna happen to us now?"

   19. LFLex Fridman2:30

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BYBassem Youssef2:31

       And, and, and there's like two different reactions. There's like the white reaction, which is like, "Oh my God, I hope nobody is hurt. This is terrible. I hope everybody's okay." And there's the Arab reaction, "What's his name? What is his name? What is the name?" You know, because you know what's gonna g- come. It's kinda got, it's... I was scared what's gonna really happen in that area, and it's like, "Oh my God, it's gonna be horrible." And the way that it was reported, I, I didn't know how to handle this. So I basically, I went into hiding for a few days, three or four days, and I talked about Piers Morgan, uh, team talking to me two times, three times. I was like, "No, I can't. How can I even defend that? How can you defend the rape, the decapitated babies, and whatever?" And then I started kind of looking in the news a little bit, and then I started seeing people coming on the shows and saying things that I know as an Arab, as a Muslim, as someone from that region, that it's not true. But I didn't know how to s- how, what to say, how to say it. So I said, by the third time when they asked me, I said like, "Fine, put me on." And I went there. It was more of a (laughs) , figuratively speaking, a suicide mission. And (laughs) ...

   21. LFLex Fridman3:41

       (laughs)

   22. BYBassem Youssef3:41

       ... uh, because it's a lose-lose situation. I can, I can lose stuff in Hollywood. I can... I even, I remember my manager was like, "Bassem, be careful. I mean, are you sure you wanna do it? Are you..." My manager just was like, "Please don't do it. Please don't do it." And on the other side, if I don't perform well, whatever well means, I'm gonna be rejected by my own people. So it's a l- it was a lose-lose situation because whatever I say, it will never be enough, and whatever I say will not be good enough. And, uh, I was going into there, and I, I felt that I was going into a trance for the 33 minutes that I was on the, on that interview for the first time.

   23. LFLex Fridman4:20

       You blacked out.

   24. BYBassem Youssef4:21

       I blacked out. I blacked out. And a lot of people ask me, "Is... The earpiece, was that a bit when the earpiece kept falling?" It's like, "No, it was really falling off, and it disconnected, and I had to save it because I cannot see them. All I can hear, uh, uh, I can just hear them, and I could expecting at any time, 'Okay, Bassem, thank you.'" I was like, I, I, I was fighting for every second-

   25. LFLex Fridman4:43

       Mm-hmm.

   26. BYBassem Youssef4:43

       ... to say words to put stuff in there.

   27. LFLex Fridman4:44

       Yeah, for people who don't know, this is your, uh, conversation interview with Piers Morgan.

   28. BYBassem Youssef4:49

       Mm-hmm.

   29. LFLex Fridman4:50

       And you couldn't see.

   30. BYBassem Youssef4:51

       I couldn't see. I was just like, "The lens of the camera," and I was just like...
3. 31:49 – 47:28

   Two-state solution

   1. BYBassem Youssef31:49

   2. LFLex Fridman31:49

      So what-

   3. BYBassem Youssef31:50

      (laughs)

   4. LFLex Fridman31:50

      ... is the source of hope? You know, Jon Stewart, who we'll talk about from many angles, uh, somebody you admire, a friend.

   5. BYBassem Youssef32:00

      Hmm.

   6. LFLex Fridman32:02

      Uh, he proposed a two-state solution. (laughs)

   7. BYBassem Youssef32:05

      Of course.

   8. LFLex Fridman32:05

      Look, look, look (laughs) ... Look to the comedians for hope.

   9. BYBassem Youssef32:09

      Yes. Well, everybody's talking about the two-state conclusion, but Israel has said many times, or Netanyahu and Bennett, like, "There, there's gonna be no state solutions." They, eh, in the past, it's like... Even, even Naftali Bennett, he came in on the... on, on Hard Talk as like, "Yeah, maybe in the past, we wanted two-state solutions, but like, look, every time we give them land, they kill us, so no state solutions." And they're openly saying it.

   10. LFLex Fridman32:29

       But that's perhaps rhetoric.

   11. BYBassem Youssef32:31

       Rhetoric that is supported by action. Because look at what they're doing in the w- the West Bank that you've said. They are cutting it, illegal settlement, mea- piecemealing it. So how... If y- if you have an intention at all to give them anything, why would you keep do- keep doing this?

   12. LFLex Fridman32:48

       And you've called it a bunch of little Gazas.

   13. BYBassem Youssef32:51

       Yeah.

   14. LFLex Fridman32:51

       It's a nice-

   15. BYBassem Youssef32:52

       Yeah.

   16. LFLex Fridman32:52

       ... little picture of what's happening.

   17. BYBassem Youssef32:54

       Yeah, yeah, they were piecemealing it, dum, dum, dum, because it is... What happened in the past four months, the Palestinians have been micro-dosing on it for a very long time, little by little, little by little. And we would shout every time when it g- gets too much, and then we s- shut down, and then little by little. But this time it was hard. It was hard to see the blatant f- oppression. And the world said, "Maybe the Hamas Ministry of Health are giving us the bad numbers. Maybe it's used as human shields." And I, I, I laugh. There's 13,000 babies killed. Does that mean that there are 13,000 military target hiding in their diapers? Because it is so... It doesn't make any sense to kill that many b- babies. It's like, "Oh, oops. It is out of our hands." (laughs)

   18. LFLex Fridman33:45

       It's hard to know what to do with those numbers. I mean, I... T- uh, just g- one baby is enough.

   19. BYBassem Youssef33:51

       But you know what happens when you hear so many numbers? Numbers become numbers, and you become so desensitized. And this is why there's a difference between saying, "13,000 Palestinian kids dead," just like Mila Cohen, an Israeli baby, 10-month-old, she was killed in her crib. And this is what we hear from CNN. We never hear a story about a Palestinian kid. That's why... Thank you for giving me the space for saying the news about the Palestinian chi- children that were killed just four weeks. Though, like, it's, it's... Because humans needs context. They need depth. They need like a 3D look at what they can look at. But if you just tell them numbers, ugh, they don't mean anything.

   20. LFLex Fridman34:34

       Is there some degree to where both leaderships, Hamas, PA, Palestinian Authority, Israel, all want war, like perpetual war to, to remain in power?

   21. BYBassem Youssef34:48

       There is... That's, that's an interesting, uh, question. But I mean, let's admit something. The Arab regimes in the, in the area have actually used the problem of Palestine in order to stay in power, in order to take... Getting excuses to like have this enemy. And Israel, the G- the Israeli government has used that too, and maybe the Palestinians. But my problem with... When going into discussion this, is that the, the two sides are not equal. They're not equal in power, they're not equal in influence, and they're not equal in international s- support, especially with the United States. So Palestinians can... I... The, the... People who have made changes in history were the people with power, the people who would have the ability to change things. And the Palestinians cannot really change anything. What, what can they change?

   22. LFLex Fridman35:39

       Well, is that true though-

   23. BYBassem Youssef35:41

       Okay.

   24. LFLex Fridman35:41

       ... with, uh, how much support the Palestinian people have? So y- just like you said, there's a lot of Arab states there, uh, that will voice their pro-Palestinian position in order to distract from their- the own corruption and abuses of power in their own countries. But, you know, I don't think, if you look globally, there's a complete asymmetry of power and public opinion here. Maybe in the press in the West, but if you look globally...

   25. BYBassem Youssef36:12

       But do they have the same kind of weapons that the Israeli have?

   26. LFLex Fridman36:14

       Literally power? No. There's a major asymmetry-

   27. BYBassem Youssef36:18

       Mm-hmm.

   28. LFLex Fridman36:18

       ... of literal power.

   29. BYBassem Youssef36:20

       Some money to their leaders, does that make any difference? I mean, and also, when you say Palestinian Authority, which authority are you talking about? Hamas or the Palestinian Authority who has been kind of a domesticated, kind of like-

   30. LFLex Fridman36:33

       (laughs)
4. 47:28 – 55:15

   Holocaust

   1. BYBassem Youssef47:28

   2. LFLex Fridman47:28

      You mentioned 1948, the Nakba. But before that, '41, '39, '41 to '45, the Holocaust.

   3. BYBassem Youssef47:36

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LFLex Fridman47:37

      What do you do? What do you do with the Holocaust? Like what, um, how do you incorporate into the calculus-

   5. BYBassem Youssef47:44

      Oh, yeah.

   6. LFLex Fridman47:44

      ... of what's-

   7. BYBassem Youssef47:46

      Oh, it's terrible. I mean-

   8. LFLex Fridman47:46

      ... of morality that, that leads up to the displacement of s- 700,000, uh, Palestinians from the land? How do you work that out?

   9. BYBassem Youssef47:56

      Well, I, I think it's terrible. But like, I mean, what the, the, the systemic annihilation of Jewish people under the Nazi, that is like an, uh, uh, like a carefully engineered, thoughtful plan. It was terrible. It was like kind of like the human ingenuity put into like something that is very evil. But also, it is not just, not just that happened. We need, we need to remember that Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, has his visa, refugee visa rejected by the United States. There's a lot of people that were rejected by the United States, rejected by other European countries, and then they were pushed into Palestine. So you have to put yourself between like... And that the Arabs were, "Okay, we're sitting here. Okay, come, and then, all right, you don't have a, a, a home or a country anymore." That, that, that, that, that, that kills you. I mean, you see, if I'm not an Arab-... and you give me that kind of piece of, like, terrible human tragedy like, "Oh my God, that is terrible." But then I'm an Arab, it's like, "Yes, I'm so sorry, but what do I have to do with that? What? Why is that my fault?" The, the persecution of the Jewish people have started since the eighth and ninth century, because they, they were like, they were first anti-Christians, they were like criminal immigrants, they were like conspirators. There's, there's this, this is, this is, this is the, the antis, like people kind of like, as if Europe kind of like throw antisemitism on us. You understand that like Henry Ford, Henry Ford is one of the biggest anti... He was, he was the, the inspiration for Adolf Hitler. (laughs) This is how antisemitic Henry Ford was. And you kind of like gloss over that, and then suddenly we as Arabs have to pay the price. Why?

   10. LFLex Fridman49:44

       Several questions I want to ask there, so but one, just zooming out, why do you think hatred of Jews has been such a viral kind of idea throughout human history?

   11. BYBassem Youssef49:55

       Oh, it's very easy. It all started from Christ. "They killed Christ, they killed Christ, they killed Christ. They're the killer of Christ."

   12. LFLex Fridman50:02

       That's a very sexy story.

   13. BYBassem Youssef50:03

       That was so... Yeah, that was... And that stayed for years. That stayed for centuries, I'm sorry, centuries. "They're the killer of Christ." And then the ca- uh, th- the Catholic Church, church did not allow usury, but they would work in usury, so they become rich. Now the people that we hate, that we accuse them of killing Christ are becoming rich. So that's envy now, and that's, that... and, and, and that's hatred. I mean, I mean, when you talk about ghettos, ghettos were not just a secluded parts in cities, sometimes those ghettos were outside the cities. Jews were not even allowed to work a lot of professions, they were not allowed to get into the syndicates of certain, uh, professions, so they had to go work usury and they got rich. So they, they, the people hated them more. The first, the first crusade didn't kill a single Muslim, all they killed were Jews.

   14. LFLex Fridman50:59

       (laughs)

   15. BYBassem Youssef50:59

       And when they finally arrived to Jeru- Jerusalem, all they killed were Jews. They, they almost annihilated the Jews. So it was all this... And of course you have the dark ages, who do you need there as an enemy? The Jews, right? "They're the killer of Christ, there is nothing bigger than this." And then you, you fast-forward... I mean, one of the things that I, that I found out that was very, very, very, very crazy, when Henry Ford imported the, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. By the way, in the Arab world, Protocols of the Elders of Zion is so popular.

   16. LFLex Fridman51:34

       (laughs)

   17. BYBassem Youssef51:36

       (laughs) For no obvious reasons. And for the people who don't know it, it's kind of like a bunch of like stories and basically it's like the, the, the, the, the Jews say like, "We're going to control the world-"

   18. LFLex Fridman51:46

       Yeah.

   19. BYBassem Youssef51:46

       "... and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that," and whatever. What people don't know, that the, that is a work of plagiarism.

   20. LFLex Fridman51:54

       Mm-hmm.

   21. BYBassem Youssef51:55

       It was plagiarized from a satirical play called Conversation in Hell Between Machiavelli and, and Montesquieu. And it is just... It, it, it is... And it is kind of like based on one chapter, one scene or s- It was... It is crazy.

   22. LFLex Fridman52:11

       But it's crazy how sticky it is, like-

   23. BYBassem Youssef52:13

       Yes.

   24. LFLex Fridman52:14

       ... that's weird.

   25. BYBassem Youssef52:14

       Yes. Because if I, if I hate you, that's great, but if I have a story to support that hate, ah, that's even better.

   26. LFLex Fridman52:20

       But it's like one of the, one of the best stories, one of the stickiest stories about hate.

   27. BYBassem Youssef52:26

       Of course.

   28. LFLex Fridman52:26

       And it's probably the, the most effective, because like there... You know, a lot of peoples hate other groups of peoples, but that, that's just like the sexiest story of them all.

   29. BYBassem Youssef52:36

       Oh, because humans need to concentrate their hate, their insecurities and their shortcomings into one thing that they can practice that ha- that hate on. If it's a g- it's a, it's a person, great. If it's a group, even better.

   30. LFLex Fridman52:55

       Right. How do you, into this calculus, incorporate that, that group is pretty small? There's 16 million Jews worldwide.
5. 55:15 – 1:04:07

   1948

   1. LFLex Fridman55:15

      Can you speak to 1948? You know, 'cause you mentioned taking land that's not yours. Uh, maybe parallels with Native Americans?

   2. BYBassem Youssef55:25

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman55:28

      There was a war. The, the Jewish minority fought that war against several Arab states, and won that war. How do we incorporate that into the calculus?

   4. BYBassem Youssef55:41

      Yeah. Well, that's, uh, also a misconception, a, like a misinterpretation of the event, because it seems that it was, uh, like the small, the mi- the... It's kind of like a David and Goliath kind of story. But... And I was always like, "How did we, how did we not do that?" But w- in, in reality with numbers, uh, I, I can't pull it up right now, but if you look at the numbers, the number of tanks, the planes, the, the, um, trained officer, because those, many of those Jewish, uh, fighters came from World War II. They were seasoned fighters. And they actually had more planes, more tanks, more artillery, more pieces of weapon, more of the all of other combined, because they, the, the r- the people that really, like, fought was Egypt. And you have... So 1948, some, many of those Arab countries didn't even have their independence, so they would kind of, like, send, like, a cavalry, or like a people in horses. But in fact, the whole idea was like, "We won against seven nations."

   5. LFLex Fridman56:44

      Sure.

   6. BYBassem Youssef56:44

      The numbers were totally in Israel favor. They were better equipped, they were better trained, they were, they had, like, more tanks and, and, and artillery and, and, and, and, and airplanes. And they planned, planned better. So they... Yes, they deserved to win, because they planned and we didn't.

   7. LFLex Fridman56:59

      So to you, there was an asymmetry of military power even then?

   8. BYBassem Youssef57:03

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman57:03

      But what do you do with the fact that the war was won? So, like, if you look at the history of the world-

   10. BYBassem Youssef57:08

       Mm-hmm.

   11. LFLex Fridman57:11

       ... there is wars fought over land.

   12. BYBassem Youssef57:15

       Mm. I agree with you. This has been the history of humanity. Humanity was not living peacefully. It's all about, like, people taking people, and i- killing people, taking their land. But there's two difference here. Mostly, usually, the conquering power, like for example, England. They had England, and they conquer you in India, and after the occupation finished, they go back to England. Uh, France, uh, Greece, Persia, Egypt. They would, like, go in, expand and ex- shrink, expand and shrink. It's a-lways been there. What is different here is exactly what happened in Australia and the United States. A group of people came in, not just to conquer and take the land, but to completely change the, to, to replace them and get them out or kill them. It was very easy with the Indians, because they had smallpox, there was no social media, they did it over 400 years. They had time. The problem is what is happening right now, I agree with you, it might not bad- be that new, but we are there, and we're watching it happen.

   13. LFLex Fridman58:16

       And so now, we have to confront the realities of war and e- empire-

   14. BYBassem Youssef58:20

       B- b- b- yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman58:21

       ... and conquering and-

   16. BYBassem Youssef58:22

       B- because you know what's the problem? We told ourself we can be better.

   17. LFLex Fridman58:25

       Yeah.

   18. BYBassem Youssef58:26

       A- after 1948, there was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It means that we are gonna be better humans. We're not gonna kill and take land. We're not gonna displace people. We're not gonna take people for their... There's now laws, there's international laws, there's International Court of Justice. And now Israel is giving the middle finger to all of them.

   19. LFLex Fridman58:45

       So isn't it in some fundamental way, this whole thing that we're talking about is us as a civilization on social media, in, in, uh, in articles and books, in, in, uh, in newspapers, we're just trying to figure out who are we as a people?

   20. BYBassem Youssef59:01

       I, I think the, the shock came from the fact that we thought that we as humanity have evolved, and now we are... What have actually changed is that we became more advanced in effectively eradicating a group of people because of the technology that we have, and the fact that we can do that under the eyes and ears of all the world, and we are watching it under a phone. We have a window. We have a window to the war. You know? 1945, people didn't know what was happening in Japan, what... Well, we heard about it in the radio. Like, "Oh, today our forces came in, and they launched..." We don't know. We heard it. We, maybe we saw pictures after that, and it's quite edited, but now we see it. We're into it. And it is, it is so much for our, for, for our psyche, and we can't get it, and it's like... And then the Arabs are saying like, "Guys, you told us, we came to the West because we were told that we were equal." You know the Universal Declaration of Right, one of the co-authors, his name is Stefan Hassel. He's a Jew. He is a survivor of the Holocaust. And you know what happened to him? He died, by the way, a couple of years ago, but he... Before he died, he was canceled by so many people, and he was called anti-Semitic, because he joined the BDS movement, and he spoke about of Palestine. That is the author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that we value so much, and we think that that would define our humanity. But then we go in, and we are shocked. It's like maybe we were sold something... Maybe that was (laughs) false advertisement. (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman1:00:40

       You shared a tweet by an account called Awesome Jew.

   22. BYBassem Youssef1:00:46

       (laughs)

   23. LFLex Fridman1:00:46

       Uh, it reads-

   24. BYBassem Youssef1:00:48

       (coughs)

   25. LFLex Fridman1:00:48

       ... "Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Youssef..." Comedian in quotes, by the way.

   26. BYBassem Youssef1:00:53

       (laughs) Yeah, yeah, of course, because I'm not funny.

   27. LFLex Fridman1:00:55

       So, "Islamo-Nazi comedian Bassem Youssef is now denying the Octo-" I, I love that you retweeted it like this, like twice.

   28. BYBassem Youssef1:01:02

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman1:01:03

       I guess, suppose because it's advertising some upcoming dates, uh. (laughs)

   30. BYBassem Youssef1:01:06

       (laughs)
6. 1:04:07 – 1:18:29

   Egypt

   1. LFLex Fridman1:04:07

      Well, let, let's go to the beginning. Let's go to your childhood. You grew up in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt.

   2. BYBassem Youssef1:04:13

      Oh. (laughs) My childhood. (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman1:04:15

      (laughs) Well, let's figure out how you came to be who you are. Just ...

   4. BYBassem Youssef1:04:18

      How did you become an Islamonazi? (laughs)

   5. LFLex Fridman1:04:20

      Yeah, exactly. It's a long journey. I do like the swastika tattoo on your ass, which I didn't-

   6. BYBassem Youssef1:04:26

      (laughs) How did you see my ass? (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman1:04:27

      You know what you did.

   8. BYBassem Youssef1:04:28

      I know I did. (laughs)

   9. LFLex Fridman1:04:30

      (laughs) It was very inappropriate. You're also obviously a sexual harasser of me.

   10. BYBassem Youssef1:04:34

       (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman1:04:34

       Like ... I don't know.

   12. BYBassem Youssef1:04:36

       Is this ... This is like a MeToo or the-

   13. LFLex Fridman1:04:37

       Yes. This is the-

   14. BYBassem Youssef1:04:38

       This is, this is like 2020 or the ... This is, someone will come up. It's like, "Okay, we have it."

   15. LFLex Fridman1:04:42

       Yeah. Please clip it.

   16. BYBassem Youssef1:04:43

       (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman1:04:43

       This is your MeToo moment.

   18. BYBassem Youssef1:04:44

       Mm.

   19. LFLex Fridman1:04:45

       Um, all right.

   20. BYBassem Youssef1:04:46

       (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman1:04:47

       So Cairo. What's a, what's a, what's a memor- defining memory, positive or negative, from your childhood?

   22. BYBassem Youssef1:04:54

       My memory in general was, was cool. It was cool. I went to a Catholic ch- uh, uh, school until the ... For, for primary school, the elementary. And by the time I'd done, uh, there was kind of like a start of a decline into the public education. And my parents, they're like middle class working officials. He, my dad was a judge. My mom was a business professors, and she's ... And they were like one of the peoples like they didn't have that much luxury. My dad like drove like a regular like car, a Fiat, which is like the equivalent for the Lada in, uh-

   23. LFLex Fridman1:05:30

       Thank you. (laughs)

   24. BYBassem Youssef1:05:30

       ... in Russia. (laughs) Yeah.

   25. LFLex Fridman1:05:31

       Thank you for speaking to the audience. (laughs)

   26. BYBassem Youssef1:05:32

       Yeah. (laughs) The, the Lada. And, um-

   27. LFLex Fridman1:05:35

       Well, so would that be a good car or bad car?

   28. BYBassem Youssef1:05:38

       No, no. It's kind of like, kind of like the minimum. Uh, my dad was not like a man of, of, of showing off. He, whatever money they would do, they would put it for us, education, give everything to their kids. This is kind of like a very, very typical mentality. Uh, and I'm sure it's in many cultures, but like we grew up with this. Like, everything that we have is like for kids. So they would put us into education. So, uh, middle school, uh, that was the big ... 1986 was the beginning of the explosion of like international schools, private schools. And these schools were relatively expensive. Of course, now with today's currency, it's ridiculous, but at that time, it's very expensive. So I went to that school, and from ... There was this moment was like you feel less right away. I mean, the pe- he, he ... Of course, there's the, the regular bullying and stuff, but it's, it's not that. It's kind of like you always feel less. You don't have that much of like purchasing power that can allow you to go to the same outings or travel with them. And even like how you dress, it will be modest compared to them. So I was always an outsider. I was, uh ... And I compensated with that by two things, being good at school and being good at sports. So I was not like the typical nerd who's just like that. I was like, I was playing football, basketball, cracker in field. And I was like one of the ... People would like to have me on their team. So I wasn't like kind of like, "Ah, he's nerd. Get him away." But I never had a girlfriend. I never had any kind of ... I was not like w- ... I was not boyfriend material.

   29. LFLex Fridman1:07:09

       Mm-hmm.

   30. BYBassem Youssef1:07:10

       So that's kind of like it, it leaves remnants in you that you're not good enough.
7. 1:18:29 – 1:20:42

   Jon Stewart

   1. BYBassem Youssef1:18:29

   2. LFLex Fridman1:18:29

      So you saw Jon Stewart on TV for the first time in- in, uh, 2003...

   3. BYBassem Youssef1:18:35

      Mm-hmm.

   4. LFLex Fridman1:18:35

      ... I believe. How did that change your life?

   5. BYBassem Youssef1:18:37

      I was in the gym and I was running on the treadmill. And at that time, CNN was coming out for, on like, on cable. Uh, and, uh, I was watching and there's this studio, I don't know what it is. So I put the- the earphones on and I started watching. And I was so taken by this that I stopped the treadmill and I just like st- stood for the 20 minutes like this on the treadmill. And then I le- and I just like standing there. I didn't know what we was, he was saying. I didn't understand what is Democrats, what is Republicans, what is... What the... Those names that he's saying, what is Fox News? I don't understand. But I was fascinated.

   6. LFLex Fridman1:19:18

      Mm-hmm.

   7. BYBassem Youssef1:19:19

      There was something, you know, when you don't understand the music, but you get the rhythm.

   8. LFLex Fridman1:19:22

      Mm-hmm.

   9. BYBassem Youssef1:19:22

      It was that.

   10. LFLex Fridman1:19:23

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

   11. BYBassem Youssef1:19:40

       I didn't understand any of the references. But it is the m- it's th- the rhythm.

   12. LFLex Fridman1:19:44

       The, yeah, the rhythm of it.

   13. BYBassem Youssef1:19:45

       The rhythm. You know sometimes when you even see like a comedy that is, that's a language you don't understand, but there's a rhythm. Da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da, boom, boom.

   14. LFLex Fridman1:19:55

       Yeah.

   15. BYBassem Youssef1:19:55

       There's something, there's something in the music.

Episode duration: 2:43:13