Bassem Youssef challenges mainstream media to report Israeli media facts | Cuomo NewsNation

Bassem Youssef is a beautiful guy and a great comedian. I don't like just describing him as the Egyptian-born Jon Stewart. He's a lot more than that, because he has given millions of Americans perspective on the realities of the Middle East they didn't have before. Now, I'm not saying you're going to agree with everything, but that's not the point. The point is, is it food for thought? And the answer is absolutely yes. It's great to have you back. You've been touring all over the world. You just gave me a little tasty bit in the commercial that you are going to tape your own special, and then we'll see where it lands. Yes, hopefully in October, in the winter, in Los Angeles, 4th of October. Now, when they were chasing you, essentially, out of Egypt, did you ever imagine that, living your dream of testing power through humor and human dynamics, that you would be, not just in America, not just around the world, telling jokes, but that you'd be doing a special, and maybe, you know, who knows next? No, I never thought about it, but it's funny that you mention Egypt, because I have to say that watching the news in America in the last few months kind of gave me a sense of nostalgia. I kind of like said, oh my God, I feel like home. In a bad way. No, no, in a funny way, because when I was in Egypt, I was accused of all kinds of things. I was accused of being an American operative. Actually, one of the rumors that was written about me in the newspapers was that I am a CIA operative that was recruited by Jon Stewart in order to bring down the country through satire and comedy. And the thing is, there was absolutely nothing that supports that. And there are a lot of my friends who know me all my life who actually stop talking to me because they believe that kind of propaganda. And then I come here, and I see the same. All kinds of conspiracy and whatever, you know, like what happened in the colleges. I mean, I watch, like you said, the college students were funded by Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood? Yes. Wow. Do you know what that means to me? Because in Egypt, it makes sense that America can infiltrate Egypt and fund people inside. But when you tell me that Hamas is funding people inside America, this is like the Amish hacking NASA. It's like the Wi-Fi in the Hamas tunnels really worked that well. How does this work here? And how people, it's so easy to accuse people of being funded. But is there any evidence of this? Has the CIA, the Treasury, the NSA actually had reports about that? The good bad news is, if, it wouldn't be the CIA, but if a government agency came out and said, we know this, people wouldn't believe it. I know, but how come those people, and you're talking about treason, espionage, training camps. I don't know where Hamas were training these college people. No, I don't think that's the suggestion. I think the suggestion is, that is a concern of transparency, is that you have petrodollars finding their ways. And when I say petrodollars, I mean oil-producing states, whether it's Saudi. Our ally? Are they? Or is it a convenient relationship where you're being friends with a snake? So Saudis and Qatar who have the biggest American-U.S. And protests? What do they get for that money? Do they help fund the organizations? Is that bad if they do? These are provocative questions that we've never dealt with. But it's interesting when we talk about funding and how we talk about how students who, what they have showed up for the funding is like a couple of tens from Amazon. And we don't talk about the funding of AIPAC. You just mentioned the opening. Isn't that more important that a foreign nation is buying our election? Isn't that more important? Isn't that like, how come not every single news show... I think it's the same question. Because I don't think AIPAC is buying your elections, any more than any other dark money gets to fund elections and have influence. Money is everything in our politics. How many foreign countries are influencing the American election like Israel affecting ours? I haven't heard of the Qatar or the Saudi lobby putting $15 million in a local district in New York just because a guy said that he doesn't agree with the... No, he said Israel is committing genocide. So? What do you mean so? I know that one of his things that he denied, but in a country where... Well, that matters too, by the way. When you deny reality, you create an impression of Jewish people, not just Israel, as liars and... So don't conflate both of them. And second, in a country where you're allowed to deny the existence of God, you're even allowed to deny that Biden won the election. While AIPAC has actually financed more than 104 Republican candidates who did not sign the ratification of the 2020 elections. And that is fine. So basically AIPAC is allowed to allow people who deny that Biden won the elections. But we have a problem. We pay $15 million because someone denied the point of view of Israel. I'm someone who denies a lot of this, because many of the things that Israel claimed that happened came from organizations like Zaka and Hezbollah United, who also talked about babies in an oven, who talked about babies being on laundry. And you know what drives me crazy, Chris? That even the Israeli media, they have refuted these lies many, many, many times. And that's why I believe in you. I believe that you're an independent journalist and you can do something that not a single American news person has done. Just translate what is being said in the Israeli media. The Israeli media said that there was no babies in an oven. Many of the sexual harassment, sexual violence did not happen. Many of the women that was mentioned in the Sherzod Samberg movie and the New York Times article were actually found to be true. Even there was like families of women that said they were being raped and that didn't happen. So you have Israelis saying, basically, this is the biggest bro code I've ever seen in my life. No bro code when you lie for your bro. You're lying for your bro and your bro doesn't want you to lie because he said that didn't happen. So I don't know why is the American media being more royal than the king? Why they're not actually telling you what the Israeli media is saying about October 7th? I think it gets complicated in this way. Were people sexually abused, killed, and a whole host of other things on October 7th? Yes, full stop. So when you start slicing into, yeah, but this one didn't happen, even if this does and did, even if they did this, this and this, they didn't do that, it starts to get into comparing the horrible in a way that distorts the reality. The reality is October 7th happened and it was terrible. That should be enough. To do an accounting of it, I think, is counterproductive. Does it matter that there weren't the dead babies and the headless babies? Yes, which is why I brought it up so much. Because the decapitated babies. That was a very powerful image. All of that was actually made in order to have people turning a blind eye for the genocide. And if you don't like the word genocide, how about too much killing? Here's why I don't like genocide. We both know if the Israeli army wanted to kill as many people as they can, there'd be no people left there. Let's do that. One of the things that I, the exercise that I try to do is I try to see things from Israeli point of view. I understand that there's a lot of anti-Semitism. There's a lot of hatred. A lot of people hate us. And that's why we need to kill as many Hamas people and we need to eradicate Hamas. There's a collateral damage. We can't do anything about it. But I don't think that's enough. Because when all of this, like so far, 35,000, 40,000 people killed, those people have families, those have children that will be alive, right? Those people, do you think they will love Israel anymore? No. So they would be hating Israel. So what should we do? Israel should kill those people too. And when Israel is comfortable enough with killing as many people and taking as much land, and it's safe, you'll have another problem. You'll have all of the Arab countries and the Muslim countries around, do you think they will love Israel? No. So you eliminate and kill those countries too. And then by the time that Israel is comfortable enough with as much land and as much people that they kill, you'll have a bigger problem. You'll have all of these white people in colleges that are against Israel. That's a lot of anti-Semitism. So they go and they kill. And the thing is, we will only be safe if Israel is safe, and Israel will be safe if all of us are dead. But that's never happened. If anything, a history that Israel is struggling with right now in its relationship with the United States is that the United States has consistently stopped them from fighting back against their enemies. How can you say that they stopped them? They stopped them by sending them $26 billion. Well, right now they're slowing down. They're slowing down weapons. Awesome. Let's talk about the United States for a second. Yes, please. If you had American hostages, the way Hamas has the hostages, that they won't give back, even though that would be their best leverage move. Give the hostages back. Any killing that happens after that, you obviously have high ground. And say, why are you doing this? We gave you the people back. Now it must just be malice. But they're not giving them back. If they were all Americans, that place would be razed. It would be razed. I love that. Yes. Much more than Israel. And I tell all of the kids watching this. Much more than Israel. Whenever you are faced with this dilemma, if you have a moral dilemma, always ask yourself, what would America do? It's like taking inclusion tips from the Inquisition. Yes, but that is the state of play. And look, it's not like we're dealing with the Middle East with the most genteel people. I could make a very easy argument that I'm sure you would accept that your home country, Egypt, their border wall with Rafa and Palestine does not speak to brotherhood. You want them out? You don't want more to get in? You don't want more in Egypt? You have not treated the ones that are there as well? Let's talk about the secondary effect of the killing. I told you this example before. This is like you going in, killing someone in Fifth Avenue, and you're angry at the neighbors for not burying the corpse. Why don't you stop the killing? That is the question. Explain to me, like a five-year-old who hasn't lost his limbs in Gaza yet. Explain to me how... Don't make me laugh. I'll tell you. I will give you a five-year-old analogy. Please. Palestine is like a fishbowl. A fishbowl. It's a lot of fish. It's condensed. There's like so much fish in so little air. And Israel is like the person over that bowl and just like crashing the bowl, killing or taking the fish any time. Because you talk about Palestinian hostages. Before October 7th, 5,000 Palestinian hostages in the prison of Israel. Now there's 12,000. Every single day, Israel can go in any house, take the house, burn the land, burn the olive oil, take the people, put them in that hostage. So Israel can do anything with this fishbowl. At a certain point, Israel is just hovering over that fishbowl. And then at one moment, a fish, crazy enough, suicidal enough, will jump from the bowl through the air, bite the pinky of Israel. And Israel's like, oh my God, that bitch bit my pinky. My hand was not even in the bowl. And then she goes and they destroy the bowl. And all you can see is Israel's pinky. You know what I call this? Tunnel vision. Yes, I love the analogy because the pinky, I get it. The pinky is not a good analogy to October 7th. Really? And no, it's not just the pinky. How many civilians were killed on October 7th? For Israel, let's say it was 800. 373. Let's say it was, they say it was 1,400. Then the final was 1,129. 373 of them were civilians. 759, let's say 56 of them were military and police. So 370. Why do you think the number came down from 1,400 to 1,129? Because it was an accident. No. Why? According to Israeli officials, because so many bodies were so burned and so stuck together, they could not distinguish the Hamas fighters from the Israeli hostages. Right? So that much fire, that burns the body that much. Do you think people with machine guns or motorcycles have that kind of fight? No, that was the firepower of tanks and Apache. And according to Israeli witnesses, Israel was a lot, according to Hannibal Directive, if people would like to actually look that up, Israel actually killed many of those hostages on the way out. As a matter of fact, one of the soldiers said, I saw a car running back to the borders, and I know that there were hostages. So I thought of killing everybody instead of taking them hostage. And that is so effective. You understand what the soldier said? He was like, OK, if they are dead, there's no hostages. There's no rescue effort. So now I have saved one shift. This is amazing. Basically, their idea of not negotiating with terrorists is not having anything to negotiate about. And those pictures of cars that were incinerated and burned to a crisp, this is not the firepower. And this is another thing that I want you to do, Chris, because nobody talks about this. The Hannibal Directive and how Israel has messed up this has been talked about for months in Israel, and not a single American news person has talked about that. I will talk to you as an American funder. My tax money funds that war. And we fund Israel for a very important thing, to keep Jewish people safe. Right? We need to keep Jewish people safe. When October 7th happened, the response time was six hours. Now, just for people who don't know the Middle East, Israel is as big as New Jersey. It's that small and that horrible. And if you have a place that small, they have more military bases and airfields, more than Manhattan has. So why do you think it was so slow? I don't know. I'm telling you. I don't know. If I cannot stop the war, at least as someone who financed that, I need a performance report. They took six hours to move in something that shouldn't take more than five minutes. Six hours. Did they stop to ask for directions? You are suggesting that they wanted it to go. I don't know. I don't know. I am asking you as a performer, why are we not talking about the failure of that state that we financed? Because they are in the midst of crisis. No. When we were in the middle of a crisis, you can evaluate the people that you are financing. We never do that. We never do that. I'm sick and tired of this, Chris. We never do that. They cannot play the victim and the oppressor at the same time. They are basically, they have been crying for eight months. I would argue that Israel is the only place that can argue both at the same time. They are both David and Bilal. They are the strongest in the region. They are also the most hunted in the region. They are a small group of people who have been kicked out of all the surrounding countries. They are left in one. And they are very strong in that one. Where did all the Jews go in the other countries? I can tell you exactly how that happened. But Israel is like a serial killer who is bitching about a paper cut while he is on a killing spree. That's what Israel is. They are the most hunted. How often is a serial killer surrounded by people who want to kill him? Really? They are surrounded by people who protected him. You know what? When Iran sent the drone attacks, where do you think the flights that actually intercepted came from Arab countries that are friends with Israel? The biggest military power in the region is Egypt. Did you see Egypt firing a single missile towards Israel? Jordan. Saudi Arabia. You are talking about Hezbollah and Hamas. I don't see Egypt hunting Israel or Jordan hunting Israel. Not right now. They have in the past. If it weren't for the United States, Egypt would have taken aid. I feel... Well, actually, you know what? Egypt takes aid from America in order for Israel's security. Do you understand how much Israel is costing us? And let's talk about America again for a second. You have a joint session from Congress inviting Netanyahu, a war criminal, someone with a global approval rate that's worse than Satan. And then you bring them here. While the whole world is telling you this is a war criminal. You have people going on pilgrimages to Tel Aviv to tell Netanyahu that we are very sorry for Biden is not supporting you enough. Who are these people loyal to? Are they loyal to the United States or are they loyal to the people who pay for their elections? You have an AIPAC bragging about spending $100 million and having a 98% success rate in the Congress. How is not that the main news in every single news? All those comedians who think that they're tough people talking about America, talking about making fun of everything. Isn't that enough material? About talking about the effect of a foreign country in our elections? It should all be on the table. One sad thing for me is when you start getting into money in American elections, there's so many deep pockets now because of what we have made legal. The problem in our politics for the first time ever is not illegal money, illegal influence. It's legal. Legal money and legal influence. I got to jump. I appreciate you ceding conversation for people. I know people aren't going to like a lot of what he said. Some people will like a lot of what he said. I don't have the same experience. I'll never demonize him for it. He is my friend. I'll never demonize him. He's legit. He's like Hugh Jackman. It's all passed. All passed. I have to take a break. Bassem Youssef, okay? He is a brilliant comedian. I know we're talking politics, but he has many talents. Hey, thank you for watching. Please go to NewsNationNow.com. NewsNationNow.com. And you can find News Nation on your television provider. And don't forget to click the red subscribe button down below. Then you will get more of News Nation's fact-driven coverage.