[music]

Interviewer: What made you want to come out to the show tonight?

Speaker 1: Definitely seeing Bassem Youssef's interviews, especially with Piers Morgan, that really brought light to how awesome he is and made me want to come and see him in person.

Speaker 2: He really put his heart out there for what millions of people are actually expressing, and I wanted to really go see him in person.

Speaker 3: We have been supporting Bassem for a couple of years, and we're just here to support Arab Americans who are trying to make and foster change within America.

Speaker 4: I feel like he's a good person to represent the Arab community and to represent the situation that's going on.

Speaker 5: It's so nice that we can do large events where we're speaking the truth and it's capturing a lot of views. I'm just so proud to be a part of it. I appreciate that he's using his voice for the people who don't have a voice right now or even who have a voice, but no one's listening to them.

Speaker 6: A voice of the voiceless. He's representing us.

Speaker 4: He's basically giving us a voice.

Speaker 5: Yes.

[music]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. Welcome to the show. We connected with the people you just heard while they were waiting online to see Egyptian American comedian Bassem Youssef take the stage in Detroit. As you heard, a lot of people have been coming to his shows because they feel like he's given them a voice, but that is a complicated idea for Bassem Youssef himself. First off, you got to understand his own story, which is fascinating and remarkable. In Egypt, he hosted a television show of political satire that made him a megastar throughout the entire Middle East.

That stardom, born from his relentless critique of the Egyptian government, also made him a target. He was forced to flee the country to avoid becoming a political prisoner. He landed in the US, and he began the work of totally rebuilding his life and his craft as a satirist. 10 years later, he has finally found a new artistic voice, and last fall, he launched his first tour as a stand-up comic, and then October 7th happened. About a month later, Bassem Yousef did an interview with Piers Morgan.

Piers Morgan: Well, joining me now to discuss the conflict in Israel and Gaza is a TV host and satirist, Bassem Youssef.

Kai Wright: In it he offered a darkly satirical commentary on how easily the world had accepted the mass loss of Palestinian lives during Israel's retaliatory invasion of Gaza.

Bassem Youssef: They're doing but we're used to that. We're used to them being bombed every time and moving from one place to the other. Palestinians they're very dramatic, "Ah, Israel killing us," but they never die. They always come back. They're very difficult to kill, very difficult people to kill. I know because I'm married to one. I tried many times. I couldn't kill her.

Kai Wright: Like I said, it was dark.

Piers Morgan: There's a dark humor there and I understand why because I thought--

Bassem Youssef: No, it's not dark humor. I try to get to her every time, but she uses our kids as human shields. I can never take her out.

Kai Wright: More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel's invasion. Bassem says he was simply responding on a personal level to all that death, but in doing so he gave voice to a sentiment that many, many people felt and struggled to articulate themselves. As a result, the moment went viral. TikTok just blew up with videos cheering on his wry approach.

Participant

Speaker 8: I truly believe Bassem Youssef is a literal genius.

Speaker 9: Youssef has found the best way to converse with Piers Morgan, sarcasm.

Speaker 10: Watching Piers Morgan there struggle is just wonderful. He does not know how to respond.

Kai Wright: The reaction was so strong that Piers Morgan actually flew to Bassem Youssef's home in Los Angeles to do a two-hour follow-up interview. Here's the thing, this viral moment, it's just a blip in a much longer story for Bassem Youssef. He was once known as the Jon Stewart of the Arab world, and that reputation almost cost him his life, which maybe is part of why he's not at all excited to become a new spokesperson for anything. I sat down with him recently to talk about his journey and about the comedic voice he's actually trying to develop right now, one in which he reflects on his personal experience, navigating many overlapping and conflicting cultures.

First off, congrats on the tour. Are you having fun?

Bassem Youssef: I'm having a great time. It's such a pleasure to be able to go around and make people laugh and get money out of it.

Kai Wright: [laughs] Right. It's a unique tour in that you are doing both English and Arabic shows. Why did you decide to do two languages?

Bassem Youssef: There's always a demand for people in the Arab world that they want to have some Arabic content. People are reminiscent about my show in Egypt so I created a new product that's almost been a year and a half old to cater for that. It was actually, surprisingly, it was much more difficult to come up with the Arabic show than the English show because the Arabic show will always be compared with my show back in Egypt, and I didn't want it to be my show in Egypt. Also, the Arabic people that come to my show, they expect something that it's not there [chuckles] because they don't know what to expect.

Is it going to be me talking about how I talk about stuff in Egypt? Is it what's happening right now? It's a personal story, and also, I deal with 22 different dialects, a Moroccan dialect, an Algerian dialect, Tunisian dialect, and these dialects are vastly different from the Egyptian dialect. This is why to have people from 22 different dialects coming into the same show and follow the same hour, it is very difficult. Believe it or not, English is a more of a unifying language.

Kai Wright: Wow. Wow. Just so I'm clear, do you really try to somehow bridge all 22 dialects in the course of the show?

Bassem Youssef: Oh, yes, I do. I do. I bring in everybody who comes to the show, find themselves represented somehow, and I even I would formulate certain sentences that have different words from different dialects, from different culture, and it sounds extremely funny because one thing in one dialect means the totally different thing, and I'll give you a very stupid example.

Kai Wright: Please.

Bassem Youssef: An iron that we iron your clothes with.

Kai Wright: Yes.

Bassem Youssef: The same word in Saudi dialect means ass.

Kai Wright: [laughs]

Bassem Youssef: To look in all dialects to look, in Tunisian, it means I farted. It is very difficult and it's very funny, and to formulate that kind of jokes around it, it's challenging, but it could be rewarding if it's done well.

Kai Wright: That's really cool. There's a lot of wordplay in the Arabic show that we're missing in the English show.

Bassem Youssef: Oh, yes, it's a lot of wordplay. It's a lot of, also, more crowd work in the Arabic show.

Kai Wright: Two of our own producers are big fans and attended separate shows of yours, expecting that you might deal with the politics around what's happening in Gaza, given the interviews. Of course, you wrote that show before the invasion, but did you ever consider changing it to include Gaza?

Bassem Youssef: This is, again, the problem that people don't understand about comedy. To come up with an hour is very difficult, and to have an hour that is set on a tour, comedians work years for it, and I've been only doing stand-up comedy for four or five years and only came to terms with my one hour just a couple of years ago. I don't want my hour to be topical or to be something that's dealing with the current events. I think this is still evolving. My one hour is my origin story. It still has a lot of politics in it. At the end of the day it's talking about expression and freedom of expression there is [crosstalk]

Kai Wright: Yes.

Bassem Youssef: I don't feel obliged that I have to bring in jokes of what is happening right now. I am doing my show, and I tell people, if you expect that you want to come and see what's something related to the thing, I don't feel comfortable doing it. I would rather harness my craft and work on my hour other than just chasing topical jokes, which is not necessarily what stand-up comedy is. Stand-up comedy could be that, but also it could be more of a telling my own story.

Kai Wright: A lot of people have been newly introduced to you and your work because of the interview you did with Piers Morgan. You were obviously very popular before that, but for a number of folks, that is how they've become introduced to you. You've got a lot of these new eyes and ears parsing your words. What has that been like and have you gained new audiences you weren't expecting?

Bassem Youssef: Yes. There's a lot of people who, again, were not aware of me before that interview, and when they come to the show, I want them to know me, who I am. I think my stand-up comedy hour right now, it's relatable to a lot of people who might be immigrants from other countries or even living in this country and feel that they are under pressure to perform through different expectations, and my show is about that. It is actually more relatable to people more than it is than you just talking about a certain event.

I talk deeper about my own experience as an immigrant, as someone who always found himself as a fish out of water like being in comedy while not belonging to it, being in America while not being exactly welcomed under a certain administration. It's an ongoing story that people can relate to not just something that's a point of time. [music]

Kai Wright: As part of Bassem's show, he asks the audience who they are. He's trying to get a demographic makeup of his audience, and he says, "It has changed since the Piers Morgan interview."

Bassem Youssef: I'm having more South Asian people coming, Indian, Pakistani, Afghani. They're increasing in my-- Asian sometimes they're even more than Arabs. It's very interesting. A lot of Middle East like Turkish, Persian, a lot come to my show. African [inaudible 00:10:27] and Latin Americans also come to my show. I joke about this like it seems I'm the brown hero in the face of the white imperialism. Imperialism, yes.

[laughter]

Bassem Youssef: The demography of the people coming to a show has shifted.

Kai Wright: Why do you think that shift happened? What is driving that?

Bassem Youssef: I think a lot of people relate to the problem of Palestine as their own problem because they see how the West has imposed their own narrative and own rules forever and now they see someone who speaks against them in the same language and refuting their calls because the problem with Palestine is the problem with Indians with British, the problem with Pakistani with the British, the problem with maybe anybody with the British.

[laughter]

Bassem Youssef: The idea of being put down because of your ethnicity and your background has been very disheartening.

Kai Wright: You've said that part of the reason you have spoken up quite vocally in that Piers Morgan interview and elsewhere is that partly is that you're speaking up for your wife and her family who are from Gaza. By the way, where are they now? Is everyone safe in her family?

Bassem Youssef: No, they are in Rafah waiting to have a bomb dropped on their heads like everybody else so hoping they're going to be safe.

Kai Wright: How has that been for your family trying to--

Bassem Youssef: Well, despite what people might think, we are carrying on with our life as normal because we have been living with this for years. It's been in the background of our life. It's kind of white noise and you cannot think about it 24/7 because you need to survive at the end of the day. It's very difficult but when I get the chance to talk about it, I try to present their case as much as I can. I find it extending way beyond Gaza, way beyond Palestinians, and my identity as an Arab, as a Muslim, is being questioned because when you see Palestinian flags a pro-Palestinian thing and they're called terrorists so I can be called a terrorist tomorrow. If I speak against Israel, I'm an anti-Semite. If I speak against the American policy, I'm a terrorist. Where does it end?

Same way, basically, what happened to me in Egypt. I was just doing comedy and then I'm being accused of a secret Freemason and a secret Jew and an infidel and a CIA agent, all of that kind of thing. I feel kind of a Deja Vu happening all over again.

[music]

Kai Wright: This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. More of my conversation with Egyptian American comedian, Bassem Youssef, is just ahead. How he became known as the Jon Stewart of Egypt and how he had to flee for his life as a result. Stay with us.

Welcome back. It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. A special welcome to our new listeners at WHYY in Philadelphia, WYPR in Baltimore and on South Carolina Public Radio. Great to have all of you in the community.

I'm talking this week with Egyptian American comedian, Bassem Youssef, about his life and career, first, as a megastar political satirist in Egypt and across the Arab world, and now as an immigrant, building a new life and finding a new artistic voice in the United States. For more than a decade, he's been known here in the US as the Jon Stewart of Egypt but back in Egypt, Bassem started off in a career that's about as far away from comedy as I can imagine. He was a heart surgeon. I asked him why he chose that work initially.

Bassem Youssef: You do that because that's what expected of you in the Middle East. I say to my comedy is you're either expected to be a doctor or an engineer or a disappointment. I went through the motions of it because that is I have a clear path of a career, but I never liked it. When the revolution happened and the Arab Spring happened, I did these YouTube videos and then I find a way, "Oh, I can live my life differently." It was not a spur of a moment to-- It was not an overnight shift. It was a calculated risk.

Kai Wright: This was just before the Egyptian revolution and you got interested in making a YouTube series. This was while you were waiting on a visa to come to US and work as a doctor in Cleveland actually. What was the original content of that show? What were you making?

Bassem Youssef: When the 2011 revolution happened, the Arab Spring happened, there was all kind of misinformation and lies so I got inspired to do it like a Jon Stewart daily show style, and I started to cut some of their ridiculous statement that we saw on television and their ridiculous claims and I started commenting on it. It was a five-minutes, six-minutes, seven-minutes video, and it went viral. After six, seven episodes, I was offered my own television show.

[foreign language]

[applause]

Kai Wright: At the height of it, it was the most-watched show in the region around 30 million viewers a week.

Bassem Youssef: Yes, only in Egypt. The rest of the region was hundreds of millions views.

[music]

Kai Wright: Do you remember what that feeling was like the first time you looked up and thought, "Oh, wow, people recognize me on the streets for this stuff?"

Bassem Youssef: It was always something that blew my mind away, but also put me under a lot of pressure that I was scared about the expectations and there's always this feeling that you're deserving to be in that position. At the beginning, I remember I didn't like people taking pictures of me because that's too much. That's infatuation. That's not real. This is what fame or exposure to fame, especially if it was sudden, and that's so big, does to you, it would either humble you or go to your head because it's very toxic. It was something that I rejected from the get-go.

I'm someone who's worked as a doctor, either a medical student or a medical doctor for 19 years so I'm not used to that kind of admiration and adoration. Actually it's the complete opposite. As a resident, basically, you're being put down by your professors, and it's more of a military kind of lifestyle, and you don't have that sense of self-worth and you always feel that you are always underperforming or not deserving basically. I had to struggle with that because, as I said, it didn't come easy to accept that kind of fame.

Kai Wright: What do you think you had touched at that time that so quickly made people drawn to your work? What do you think it was that you were touching for them emotionally?

Bassem Youssef: The idea of political satire, straightforward political satire was not there. It is like indirect satire but when we're in a position where we can call out what's happening in real-time, that was something that people were not used to so people found something that was missing and related to.

Kai Wright: When Bassem launched his TV show, it was a moment when free press in Egypt didn't really exist. There had been a dictator for 30 years, and the average person just didn't really feel they had representation on the national stage. That's even what attracted some of the show's writers to join him in the effort. Many of them started off as fans of the show. Here's what one of them said in a 2016 documentary about Bassem called Tickling Giants.

Speaker 11: I remember the first time I saw Bassem Youssef's show, I saw it as something on my sight. He was encouraging people to be more critical toward authority and someone who's saying things that are similar to what we're saying to each other. Things that are not usually on TV, things that are critical of the media, and the way it controls the people's mind. He's our guy.

Kai Wright: Bassem, it was a moment of catharsis for a lot of people, I imagine, to watch your show. Was it cathartic for you to do the show?

Bassem Youssef: It was always that source of pressure never cathartic. There's always the pressure to do a good show, a good episode, and if you did a really good episode, you think about how can I top it the next week. I was always been in a position where I enjoyed it. This is one of the things that I do regret doing the show that I didn't actually, I was not in a position to enjoy myself. I was more under the pressure to perform and to do the best every time. It was very relentless.

Kai Wright: You are very hard on yourself it sounds like.

Bassem Youssef: Well, anybody in the field of that much exposure, I don't think they're completely satisfied with what they offered and they always think that they are underperforming. I think that's a huge part of the creator, their artistic life. This is why you find a lot of them either have suicidal thoughts or depression because they always think that we're not doing good enough and every time you reach a new high, you're afraid that you cannot top that. It's a vicious circle and it's very difficult to deal with that kind of light and expectations.

Kai Wright: Have you been able to get past that? Do you still feel that way?

Bassem Youssef: I'm trying to. I'm trying to find a place in my life where I'm more appreciative and more grateful for what I have instead of trying to strive what I should be doing or what I can do more because it's an endless loop and it eats you up.

Kai Wright: It will. It will surely eat you up. It will surely eat you up. The show started to gain the attention of not just fans, but the regime. You had at least two Egyptian presidents file legal claims against you.

Speaker 12: Hundreds of supporters of Bassem Youssef have protested the arrest of the popular television presenter and [crosstalk]

Kai Wright: Then you were eventually brought in to be interrogated by the authorities.

Cable News Clip: Bassem Youssef was cracking jokes via Twitter even when he was in the prosecutor's office and it's --

Kai Wright: I understand you didn't really take it seriously at first.

Bassem Youssef: Yes. I felt that it was ridiculous and now it's actually part of my stand-up comedy show. Part of that interrogation scene, it's part of my show. I don't know why I was always in denial that something bad was happening to me, even when I was-- I don't know, maybe this is that feeling of surviving that was going on in the background. That's like everything's going to be okay, although nothing seems to be okay.

Kai Wright: Well, it's funny, I guess. You can normalize anything emotionally it seems like because humans, we can--

Bassem Youssef: Yes. I think it's a defense mechanism, I guess.

Kai Wright: There was a moment in your journey you say that not only did the state come after you, but your friends and some members of your family started to believe some of the things that were being printed about you, that you were an operative or that you had actually been recruited by Jon Stewart to destabilize the Egyptian state.

Bassem Youssef: Yes. I had people from my friends and family who believed that. Mostly they were the pro-military people who liked me a lot when I was doing the show against the Muslim brotherhood and then turned against me when I did it against the army. I saw the tide shift very, very quickly and it was disheartening to see it in real-time. It's people that they know me, they worked with me, they went to school with me, they have been around me, and know who I am. Then to find them that turn that way, you feel like-- It's like, "If you don't know who I am or you don't understand where I come from, who will."

I have to admit that I was more reactive to what people think about me now. I'm less and less not letting that affect me. I'm trying to find a way where I don't get affected by what people's thoughts about me or how-- Maybe it's a general theme of not seeking people's validation. I think it's we as humans, we do that a lot and I think it's a problem that we need to get rid of.

Kai Wright: I wonder if the experience though, also, is part of your skepticism of fame and notoriety.

Bassem Youssef: Yes, because I always think that I'm not deserving to be in that position so it's very different. A part of me is like, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't be here in the first place."

Kai Wright: How did all of this escalate to the point where you decided you needed to leave Egypt?

Bassem Youssef: At a certain point, there was lawsuits against me. In places like Egypt, when you get a lawsuit, it is meant to actually put you in jail eventually, even if it took up some time because in order to preserve their image in the world they have to find a way legally to cripple you. My lawyer said like, "You need to leave right away."

Kai Wright: Oh, wow.

Bassem Youssef: You need to leave right away because-- Yes, there was a verdict against me at 12:00 noon. At five o'clock I was on a plane leaving.

Kai Wright: Wow. That was the moment of connecting with reality, I guess.

Bassem Youssef: Yes.

Speaker 14: These confusing political times have come back to bite Bassem. His show has shut down due to what he calls "insurmountable pressure." Now between lectures at Harvard--

Kai Wright: Even before Bassem Youssef started his show in Egypt, he had admired Jon Stewart and, in many ways, he modeled his own platform after The Daily Show. When the show got hugely popular, comparisons between the two satirists grew, and when Jon Stewart noticed that comparison, he reached out. He had Bassem on his show a few times.

Jon Stewart: Please welcome Bassem Youssef.

[applause]

[music]

Kai Wright: When Bassem moved to the US, that relationship became even stronger.

Bassem Youssef: We're not very much different.

Jon Stewart: No.

Bassem Youssef: Can I ask a question?

Kai Wright: It was actually one of Jon Stewart's producers who made that 2016 documentary called Tickling Giants-

[laughter]

Kai Wright: -but once here in the US Bassem decided he wanted to try something new.

You came to the US and you switched platforms for your work from this show to stand-up comedy. Why did you switch to stand-up comedy? What was it about stand-up comedy that drew you?

Bassem Youssef: I didn't switch to stand-up comedy right away. There was a period where I was lost. I didn't find myself in the United States. I started giving speeches and lectures about my journey and people find it interesting, a doctor turned comedian and then getting against the authority. It was a good story, but I couldn't stay that story forever. I couldn't just speak about my life forever in this kind of form because it became repetitive. I wanted to do something that is more interesting and more exciting so I turned this first into a one-man show. Then from the one-man show, I would turn it into more of a performance.

Kai Wright: One of those performances was a 2016 satirical video series called Democracy Handbook, where Bassem tried to learn more about the political system of his new home here through the lens of a Muslim immigrant.

Bassem Youssef: Having just arrived in the US I'm so grateful that the mainstream media provides so many tips for how Muslims can fit in here.

Speaker 15: We need the help of every Muslim who would like to be accepted as an American to isolate and identify the terrorists.

Bassem Youssef: I want to be accepted. I'll turn in anyone, even my brother but, no, where should I start?

Speaker 16: They are really concerned that despite his message [crosstalk]

Bassem Youssef: Then that performance slightly veered into the stand-up comedy. It actually happened over the years, and maybe it's three, four years ago, and then I said, "Oh, maybe what I'm doing is stand-up comedy." I said, like, "Well, I guess I'm going to call myself a comedian now," because I didn't call myself a comedian before.

Kai Wright: [laughs] You didn't, that you didn't consider it comedy before?

Bassem Youssef: No. No, I would call myself a satirist or a one-man show, doing one-man show or a speaker but I didn't say that I'm a comedian or a stand-up comedian because I feel that I wasn't earning it.

Kai Wright: We asked our listeners for questions for you in advance of the show and here's one voicemail we got from Hisham in Houston.

Hisham: You're speaking differently when you do a show in Arabic and shows in English. Are you trying to get different things across to these groups? What are you hoping each group will take away from hearing you speak?

Bassem Youssef: No, the English show is different from the Arabic show. The Arabic show because I'm dealing with different dialects, so I have to put that in consideration. I'm the only comedian that people come from all over the world to see him. If I'm a Lebanese comedian, mostly Lebanese and Syrian will come and see. If I'm a Saudi, Saudis will. If I'm Moroccan, the Moroccans will only come and see it. Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian have their own dialect. When I started doing the show, it was difficult to how can I cater to all those people?

I had to find a way where I can unify those people in a way and also tell them a unifying story, which would have to be a personal story. Political satire might not work because what do I do? Do I make fun of politics in Egypt? Would it work for someone in Morocco? I had to find a scene that is unifying for everybody. The scene that was unifying were how interesting it is that we have all different dialects. What is the expectation when you come into the show and now my own personal story as a doctor and related to two people.

My English stand-up comedy is my work as a doctor leaving Egypt, coming here under Donald Trump as a president and this is basically an immigrant experience. Both of them are different and they cater differently for different audiences. It is not something about the message as much as how can I make this entertaining and also thoughtful for the people who come to the show? The English show, the idea of not belonging and living through other people expectations while the Arabic show is how vastly different as we are while we think we are very similar as Arabs, but we're not. It just had different themes. I had people coming to the English show and the Arabic show two days in a row and they have a totally vastly different experiences, different feelings about it.

Kai Wright: It's also, we should say, English is a second language for you. You had to learn your trade and learn your art in this new language. What was that like?

Bassem Youssef: Very difficult at the beginning because you can write a perfect joke, but you don't deliver it well because it has to be delivered according to the rules of that language, because each language has its cadence and that's rhythm and timing. The timing in each language is different so I had to learn it by trial and error. There was no manual for me other than just watching other comedians, but there was no really manual. There's no one really teaches you who does that. The only advice you can get from other comedians is slow down, [chuckles] which I have to work on it, and it works amazing.

[music]

Kai Wright: I'm Kai Wright. I'm talking with Egyptian American comedian Bassem Youssef. His political satire in Egypt captivated tens of millions of fans and forced him to flee to the US where he's been finding a new voice and where he's also finding new fans who once again feel that his political voice on Gaza represents them, regardless of whether that's his intent. We caught up with a few of them outside of our recent show in Detroit.

Speaker 17: I got to know Bassem Youssef, thanks to Jon Stewart, years ago, and like, wow. Wow, what a fresh air.

Speaker 18: We have been supporting Bassem since-- Really, for a couple of years we've been watching his interviews and some of his satire.

Speaker 17: We're Egyptians. He's Egyptian too.

Speaker 19: I've been familiar with his work for a long time, as early as when he used to go on Jon Stewart. He's a really funny guy.

Speaker 20: Oh, I just think he's hilarious. I love his sarcasm. It's very lighthearted regarding really heavy topics and sometimes you just need that.

Speaker 21: We've been seeing him before. He's good that he brings fun of politics, brings fun of people.

Speaker 22: He speaks up for what's going on in the real world and says it how it is.

Speaker 23: He is honest and open about what he thinks and what he feels.

Speaker 24: I think that a lot of people can relate to his brand of humor and he was able to open a door that many other people haven't been able to during interviews. So intelligent, resonated with the West. He's making us proud.

[music]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. More of my conversation with Bassem Youssef just ahead.

[music]

Regina de Heer: Hi, I'm Regina, a producer here at Notes from America with Kai Wright. I know, I know you're loving this episode. I promise I won't hold you long, but I have to ask, have you seen what we're up to on Instagram? That's where we post questions to you that help shape the conversations that we have on this podcast. Plus, it's a great way to keep up with the show. Follow notes with Kai on Instagram, that's @noteswithkai, and we'll talk to you there. Thanks for listening.

[music]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. I'm talking this week with Egyptian American comedian, Bassem Youssef, about his journey from superstardom as a political satirist in the Middle East to developing a new voice as a stand-up comic in the United States.

Bassem, you have started a children's book series, by the way, called The Magical Reality of Nadia, which is named after your daughter. It's a personal story about her real-life experiences as an immigrant that faces the difficulties that come with being an immigrant in the United States like new friends and racism. How has it been not only relocating yourself here but doing that with a young daughter too?

Bassem Youssef: Relocating in the United States has been, of course, it has some challenges, but eventually it's been working out very well, whereas we live in a good district with a good school system and she enjoys going to school and has-- I think one of the things that I appreciate about living in the states, especially living in Los Angeles and California, how just diverse her school is and how you have people from all different kind of backgrounds from Latin American people even from Europe and Africa and Asia, and they're just like-- It's beautiful that like your kids know that the rule is being different, not the exception. I think it opens up her horizon and her minds about the world that we live in. I'm very appreciative of that.

Kai Wright: Another question from a listener that's related to this ask, how have you integrated with the American community to feel like you belong and feel American without losing your identity? It's a question I ask myself every day.

Bassem Youssef: I didn't have a problem with that actually, to be honest. It's not something I've struggled with. What I struggled with is finding my place in the society to be a productive member of society, to have my own career. That's something that even Americans deal with. There are stand-up comedians who have been white and Americans and born here and they struggle with.

I think my biggest struggle was a career struggle and finding my way to reinvent myself here, but I never felt that I'm an outsider or something to have to blend in. American society gives you the chance to be yourself and the same time to be American. It doesn't have to be something that is opposing. I love being in the United States. I love the opportunities the United States have given me, and I'm very happy to be an American Egyptian.

It's not something that I have struggled with. If there's anything that I've struggled with is struggling with the political narrative of how America has been supporting Israel with no question asked. This is something that I've been struggling or maybe this is something that I've been talking about right now, but on a personal level, on a day-to-day basis, I haven't had any problem blending into that American society at all.

Kai Wright: Well, on the political level, of course, you have tons of experience doing satire or comedy in the face of difficult times, but does this moment in Gaza feel different? The level of destruction and death is just so intense. When you think about trying to engage it as satire or as comedy, does it feel different or harder than it did in the past?

Bassem Youssef: Yes, because you see all of these destruction and all of these civilian deaths and people just like gaslight you and making you accept that it is just a necessity. It's something that we have to do and we're sorry about the people being killed along the way but you have to endure it until we-- I don't know what it is. Is it like just killing the terrorists, killing Hamas, or just getting everybody out of the region? It's just like the level of gaslighting and denial of what this is has been astounding and very, very distressing.

The fact that now you really discovered that we're not equal, and people look at people from my part of the world, they're not equal, the same way that Black people were treated as less and how they would go in and they enslave and torture Black people. Then when one Black person stands up and retaliate, his whole family, his whole community, his whole village could be burned to the ground, which means that we are not equal. Our lives and our blood is not equal and is not treated equally. All of these empty words about equality and how we are all the same, it's really ridiculous.

Kai Wright: On our show, we've been following the journey of Hisham Awartani, the college student who was shot in Burlington, Vermont in November of last year. He's another person who has become a bit of a reluctant icon. You reached out to him as well. What made you do that?

Bassem Youssef: My manager called me and he said there's this family that wanted to attend the show, but they are in the hospital and they cannot see- and they're wondering if you would visit them. I said, "I need to go and visit them." I visited him and I connected with him on a personal level. He is such a bright kid. Then I was very sad that we tried to bring him, we tried to talk to his doctor, but he wouldn't allow him to be committed to a wheelchair, because he was just wearing a keffiyeh and speaking Arabic and someone shoots him. It's terrible.

Kai Wright: You ended having him FaceTime into your show in Boston.

Bassem Youssef: Yes, yes. Yes, I did that.

Kai Wright: [chuckles]

Bassem Youssef: Hisham Awartani.

[crowd cheers]

Kai Wright: Why did you decide to do that and what was it like?

Bassem Youssef: Well, since we can't get him physically, so at least I get him in spirit and people just responded. They love that very much.

Help us Hisham. [unintelligible 00:38:12] Maybe it's a Palestinian thing. What's the purpose [crosstalk]

Kai Wright: What'd you have him talk about?

Bassem Youssef: Well, I told them he's your family, he's your friends. We talk to him and I promised him when he gets better that I would fly him anywhere to come and meet at the show.

Kai Wright: As someone who, again, has a similar experience, well, the part of being a reluctant icon, Hisham talked to us about that as well, being put on a pedestal and that's not what he was looking for. What advice would you give someone like him for navigating that moment?

Bassem Youssef: Be yourself and don't be pressured by other people wanting you to be something else because if you follow people, it's a bottomless pit. You'll never be able to satisfy them and you'll always come up to it. Do what makes you feel better about yourself.

Kai Wright: I wonder as we wrap up, what you do to take care of yourself because I do wonder about how much of, sorry to play your shrink, but how much of your [chuckles] skepticism of fame is the trauma of having lost everything once before?

Bassem Youssef: Well, I'll try to find a refuge with my family, with my kids, with my wife. It's been an always supportive family. This is a place that you feel safe and I try not to think too much about what should have been, what would have been, what can be instead of trying to enjoy what I already have, which is a lot. I appreciate that I have that, and I think it's to be grateful instead of being angry and bitter that helps a lot.

Kai Wright: Be grateful instead of angry and bitter. Well, there's a lesson for all of us in everything we do.

Bassem Youssef: Thank you so much. [music]

Kai Wright: Bassem Youssef is an Egyptian American comedian. His stand-up show is called The Middle Beast Tour.

[music]

Kai Wright: Before we wrap up this week, I want to take a minute to talk about probably my favorite element of our show, which is you. Every week we ask you to join the conversation and to keep talking to us even after the show ends. We continue to get responses by email, by voicemail, even on Instagram. The person managing all of these various inboxes is our producer Regina de Heer who joins me now. Hey, Regina.

Regina de Heer: Hey, Kai. Our inboxes have been filling up with responses to our last few episodes. I would even go as far as to say the episode where you took calls from people whose politics were changed by the ongoing situation in Gaza, that episode got more responses than any episode we've ever done.

Kai Wright: That really doesn't surprise me. [laughs]

Regina de Heer: [chuckles]

Kai Wright: Our guest for that show was an Arab American civil rights advocate who helped launch the movement that got more than 100,000 Democratic voters to choose uncommitted rather than Joe Biden in the Michigan primary. We asked people who consider themselves Democrats in particular, has the war in Gaza impacted the way you plan to vote in November or made your decision harder in any way?

Regina de Heer: Yes, and we got answers from all across the board. For example, we got a direct message on Instagram from Isaat, who is a Jewish listener living in Brooklyn, New York. The listener shares that they have two little kids who they want to raise with strong Jewish values, but they feel like those values are threatened in the current political culture. They feel like Jewish people like themselves have been "abandoned by both parties."

Kai Wright: Yes, so political homelessness was certainly a theme of the night. Where else did people go?

Regina de Heer: Another person who chimed in on Instagram is Joyati who echoed something we heard a lot in the show itself, which is that as they put it, "Biden needs to hear us and earn our vote."

Kai Wright: This was a common theme in the live show, earn our vote. A lot of people who probably would be supporting Joe Biden and just say he has not done that because of Gaza.

Regina de Heer: Yes, so they are certainly not alone, but also we got a lot of messages from people who wanted to challenge the premise of the conversation. Here's a few voicemails to give you an idea.

Salve: This is Salve from Minnesota and I've been listening to the show. I'm curious what these people who are not going to vote for Biden what they think Trump is going to do better for the Palestinians

Speaker 25: Hi, Notes from America. Hey, I totally get it. I am definitely a Democrat. I think what Israel is doing to Palestine as a reaction to this Hamas massacre is horrifically terrible. The thing that your show is missing is just saying, and I think you as the moderator, Kai, you need to say this, not voting for Biden in this election may give the presidency to Trump. For America, oh, my God, what, are we going to go back to the 1950s? We already lost with this Supreme Court idiot picks, we lost in abortion and we'll probably lose our democracy.

Liz: Hi, my name is Liz, and I'm calling from Minneapolis. It was very interesting to me the way the show put itself across is people are losing faith in Biden. They're doubting whether they should vote for Biden. The person who had actually started the campaign for voting undecided, she was very, very clear that it was to get a message across for the primaries and in no way were they trying to affect the voting in November. I guess I am concerned about how the media is portraying this movement that it's casting doubt on the November elections, whereas it isn't that at all. I think it's a little irresponsible of the media to be portraying it in this way unwittingly or willingly. Thank you.

Kai Wright: Liz, I hear you. We did try to be really clear about the uncommitted movement and our guest Rima Meroueh who are focused only on the primary, not the general, but for many, many people, including many of our callers it is more than that. We wanted to make space for them too. Also, listen, I get it. Given January 6th and given Trump's ongoing refusal to accept the results of the last election, a wide range of people across the ideological spectrum are just really, really anxious about anything that distracts from simply directly challenging his path to power. Also, this is the democracy we say we want to defend. It's a messy business with a lot of perspectives.

We hope our role will not be parsing votes one way or the other, but facilitating real actual conversations about all the different gray area between the partisan organizations, which is where, I think, most people probably sit in this complicated American experiment. We're going to keep trying and we thank all of you for trying with us.

Regina de Heer: To that end, our next conversation about that messy democracy stuff, Kai, is on yet another controversial topic. We're going to wade into the debate about whether there's a movement of Black people supporting former President Donald Trump.

Kai Wright: This will be interesting. It's going to be Sunday, April 7th in partnership with our friends at the show Today, Explained, which is co-hosted by journalist Noel King. Noel and I have been reading a lot and talking a lot about what Black voters, in general, are thinking in 2024. There was a New York Times and Siena College poll that found 23% of Black voters said they would vote for Donald Trump if the election were held at that moment. Is this true? If it is true, what's going on in the Black community? 23% is significantly more support than Trump got from Black voters in the past. Why this sharp change? We're going to explore that this coming Sunday on April 7th, and we will take all of your calls on the topic.

Regina de Heer: Well, actually ,you can start calling as soon as you're finished listening to this show. If you're a Black person who is newly considering Donald Trump, or if this is a conversation already happening in your social circle, leave us a voicemail at 844-745-talk. That's 844-745-8255, or leave us a message on our socials @noteswithkai. I'll keep an eye out. Kai, before we go, we did get stuff that wasn't just about the election.

Kai Wright: Okay.

Regina de Heer: A lot of the time we get comments on the reels you make.

Kai Wright: Oh, on my Instagram reels.

Regina de Heer: Yes, your Instagram reels. After seeing you post in your weekend close about that episode we did with David Alan Grier, user @harlemtoilegirl ask, "Can we also talk about the wallpaper?"

Kai Wright: Oh, yes, we can. Harlemtoilegirl is Sheila Bridges. Shout out Sheila Bridges-

Regina de Heer: Shout out.

Kai Wright: -for hanging out on our Instagram. Sheila Bridges is a world-famous designer who designed the wallpaper in my house. She didn't design it for me. She designed it for the world and I bought some. [laughs] That has a really cool backstory about Black history and reclaiming racist narratives and the way that Black people often do in art. It's fascinating. Maybe we can get Sheila Bridges on the show to tell us that story. Stay tuned.

Regina de Heer: Well, I definitely look forward to learning more about that. We also got a lot of responses to our episode we did about intercultural relationships. Kai, you remember that for Valentine's Day, we asked you listeners what you learned about yourselves through your intercultural relationships. One unexpected response we got was a lot of really sweet love stories.

Kai Wright: Oh.

Regina de Heer: Like we got this one from Dan.

Dan: Hi, I am Dan in Wichita, Kansas. I am listening to you on KMUW. I have now been married for 41 years to a woman from the Philippines. I am a white man, born in Houston, Texas, grew up in Wichita, Kansas. These 41 years have been immensely happy for me and for her I'm pleased to say. We have a couple of sons. They have a couple of kids. We obviously, have a lot of different cultures going on in our family, and it's fantastic.

[music]

Kai Wright: Dan, I do hope your wife agrees that those 41 years have indeed been really happy, and congratulations to you both. That is no small feat.

Regina de Heer: That was really cool to hear. As someone who's getting married this year myself. I hope for such a long-lasting marriage.

Kai Wright: May you have it, Regina, and thank you for bringing us this wonderful mailbag.

Regina de Heer: Thank you, Kai. Happy Easter.

Kai Wright: Happy Easter.

[music]

Kai Wright: Notes from America is a production of WNYC Studios. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and keep up with us on Instagram @noteswithkai. This episode was produced by Suzanne Gaber and Regina de Heer. Mixing and theme music by Jared Paul. Our team also includes Katerina Barton, Matthew Mirando, Siona Petros, and Lindsey Foster Thomas. I'm Kai Wright. Thanks for spending time with us.

 

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