Danny Jones Podcast
#402 - “Pure Evil” Bassem Youssef BLASTS Israel’s Plot Against America
05 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is Bassem Youssef's backstory as a heart surgeon turned comedian?
Shout out to Beck Lover for hooking us up. Shout out to Beck. Beck is the man. Love you, Beck. The Albanian. Yes. The Albanian. He's a wild boy. But it's nice to meet you, man. Thank you for coming. No, thank you for having me. I think we should start this thing out by explaining your insane backstory. How you started as a heart surgeon and ended up in stand-up comedy.
Has anyone ever done that before or are you the first?
that particular trajectory, I think I'm the first. Because I, so I was a doctor, 20 years in medicine, seven years studying, 13 years operating. And I hated every second of it. I hated every second of it. But you know why we go into medicine in the Middle East? Because you want to please your parents.
Because in the Middle East, you're allowed to be one of three things, a doctor, an engineer, or a disappointment. So I didn't want to disappoint my parents. So I went into medicine. And I was never happy. It was a line of work that I was never happy. And so I always wanted to have event and I wanted to try things to kind of like get me out of that.
So I would pick up crazy hobbies, like for example, salsa. So as I was a doctor, I was actually a salsa teacher. I went to salsa, I came to Miami after I finished my medical school in 2001. And I came to Miami to learn Rueda de Casino. People who dance salsa who know what I'm talking about. This is the stuff that would people like dance in a circle and swap partners.
And it's funny because that was 2001.
i my return ticket was 17th of september 2001. oh but i ran out of money two days before 9 11 so i i just like uh booked a flight back and i went back home and i remember like my mom waking me up because i was jet lagged like get up see what's happening and i i go to see an end and i see the two tower fall and you're in age you're in egypt in egypt so i said oh my god i was in miami
where allegedly people got their training, the pilots. And then I went back to Egypt right before 9-11. And then I have a big salsa school. I was teaching people salsa while I was doing my medical training. So it was a little bit of a... It was a little bit weird. And then I continued with my medical school, specialized in heart surgery.
And I passed my USMLE exams, my transfer exams to the United States of America. And I got accepted in a fellowship in Cleveland for, not Cleveland Clinic, it was the Rainbow Hospital, Sheldon Riemer Hospital in Cleveland. And I got accepted in pediatric heart surgery fellowship. 2011, the Egyptian revolution happens and the media goes crazy.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Bassem face after transitioning to comedy?
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i don't think the whole iran war was all about that i think there was probably lots of reasons that they did that but i feel like give me one good reason for invading iran i don't think it's a good reason i think they had many reasons that they did it but i think that like like like israel pushing us to do it yeah pretty much but i think um i i
I know there was, we can get into that whole thing, but like, if I feel like if Trump was on the fence, cause he's historically, I don't think Trump wanted to do it. I don't think Trump wanted to do the whole Iran evasion. If you just go out, we could play tape of him for the next two days, two weeks of him saying how stupid it would be to start another Middle East war. Right.
And now that he's doing it, it's kind of weird.
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Chapter 3: How did Bassem's comedy show become successful in the Arab world?
Like, why are you going against everything you've always said? Right.
Maybe he's compromised. Maybe he's blackmailed.
Maybe there's so much things. So basically we are, My point I was trying to make real quick is that I think that if they were trying, if somebody, if there was a bunch of forces that we don't know about a bunch of shadowy invisible leverage that said that they have on Trump, um,
and they're trying to get him to do this war, and he's maybe on the fence of doing the war, but not sure, I think the Epstein files would be one thing that could push him over the fence to do it, for sure. Yeah.
I mean, basically you have a compromised president, and I think it happened before. It happened before. And I went on Piers Morgan and said that, and I remember when I went on his show, he said like, oh, this is ridiculous. I was talking about a book that was reviewed by Times of Israel, which is an Israeli newspaper, about a book written by an Israeli about how,
during the peace talks in the end of the 90s, basically Netanyahu approached Clinton and said like, your Monica Lewinsky tape is safe. So basically they had the tapes on him. I saw that. I saw that article. And it's very interesting how Bill Clinton in the 90s
said one thing and now they say like I killed myself for the Palestinian to have everything and they rejected it and it was proven times and times again that this was not true and basically he was pushed and blackmailed into doing so because of the and they released the tapes anyways so basically you have
a bunch of presidents being, US presidents being compromised by our greatest ally because of like what they have about their, because they have sex tapes on them, which is crazy. Now we're paying, America paid so far 29 billion, $30 billion into this war with Iran because our presidents are, cannot contain their . Especially with little kids. Yeah, I mean, it's just like saying this.
It's like, what is this? It's a very dystopian reality for me.
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Chapter 4: What led to Bassem's exile from Egypt?
Yeah, we're not going to release them.
Yeah.
And I don't just like blame Trump because Biden was in power when these files were revealed. And he didn't release it. Both sides are being compromised. So this is not like against Republicans.
And you can't give any love to all the Democrats in Congress who are just trying to take their shot at him now that it's convenient for them. and taking a shot at all the people that are trying to cover up the files now because they had their chance to do it and they never fucking did it.
I was one of those people. I got my citizenship in 2019. So in 2020, I could vote. And I was one of those people, like vote blue no matter who. Bernie Sanders, Biden, anybody but Republicans, right? But now I'm trying to see that this is a useless fight. This is a made up animosity with the right versus the left. It's all fake.
It's all fake because it doesn't make any sense when you have two sides of the aisle, they are fighting about everything. They cannot agree on anything. Abortion, identity politics, immigration, building the wall, guns, foreign policy, healthcare. They are like, they are fighting each other tooth and nail about every single item except Israel. It's 100%, always.
So it tells you like, this is fake. This is just like two people giving us like a, this is a WWE. This is a political WWE. And there's like one master who's controlling them. And then when it comes to let's send Israel $30 billion of weapon, they all sign. It is crazy. And it's in the Senate, it's even crazier than the Congress. In the Senate,
They, every single pro-Israel legislation is being approved by 99 to one or 100 to zero, which is crazy. Like the voting, and that one is most probably is Ron Paul. Yeah, seriously, look at it. It's like 99 senators, they agree for everything that is related to Israel. It doesn't make any sense.
So as a newly American citizen, I wonder if our infrastructure is falling apart, if our healthcare is falling apart, if everything in this country is not running as it should be. And in the same time, our greatest ally is having free healthcare, free education. They have almost like very, very affordable housing with our money. It's like, am I working for those people?
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Israel's influence on American politics?
You need to lose your love handles a little bit. You need to lose, you have an extra way to freedom that you need to lose. You need to go on a freedom diet.
Yeah, a lot of people are very unhappy about the Netflix roast. They're saying that we need to dial back the freedom of speech a little bit after that. That might have been too much.
I don't care about if you do it for comedians, but like you're talking about like freedom of speech, but like actually talking about the social media and talking. And then if you don't like it, they don't like it. Okay, TikTok is too free. We're going to buy it. Now Larry Ellison buys TikTok. How is like one person is allowed? By the way, he's one of the biggest donors of the IDF.
How is one person is allowed to control CNN, HBO? I thought TikTok, the problem with TikTok was China.
Chapter 6: How is the funding for Israel linked to American evangelical groups?
I thought that China was the problem with TikTok. No, it was never. That's what they're telling us. Okay. I remember this conversation. You said like, well, TikTok is a Chinese platform. Dude, you manufacture every single iPhone in China. Yeah. And now you're worried about TikTok. So it was never about China. It was basically about this because TikTok was the only...
non-American, unregulated platform where basically people knew what was happening in Palestine and Gaza through TikTok. So we're gonna buy it. And yeah, and then it's like, oh.
Chapter 7: What are the concerns surrounding Palantir's role in surveillance?
The only difference is that In the Middle East, your freedom is taken away by the government here, your freedom is taken away by corporations. And this corporation work for a foreign government. So by proxy, they basically- Look, here you're saying they get taken away by corporations. Yeah, and this corporation work very closely to the Israeli government. All of them openly support Israel.
So it is just making me feel as if I am a stranger in my own country.
It's crazy. Do you ever go back to Egypt?
Not yet, it's been 12 years, but my relationship- It's been 12 years? Yeah, I left 2014.
And you still have family there?
My brother. Your brother? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you not allowed to go back?
Would you get in trouble? Okay, there was a big part of that 12 years where it was not very comfortable. It was not a comfortable relationship. But in the past couple of years, there had been like, you know, connections. I've even had, I appeared remotely into a TV show as an interview in Egypt.
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Chapter 8: How does the conversation end regarding free speech and political influence?
So it was kind of a sign that things are like calming down between- Yeah, but because honestly, I talked about this very openly. I had a lot of problems with how things were in Egypt and it was not very friendly for a while, but honestly now, I don't need to fight a hundred battles on different fronts. I am an American citizen now. I have a big problem about me
as an American having my money, going out to support a genocidal criminal country. That is my big, this is my big fight right now. And I have to say, like with all of the stuff that I said about Egypt, what I'm seeing here is much crazier now. So I think we are kind of like bury the hatchet somehow. And maybe next year I'm gonna visit, so.
Do you, what do you make of talking about like the funding and all that of Israel? Didn't Netanyahu just say he wants to like wean off the funding? He wants to stop all the foreign aid?
So how about giving us the money back? How about that? How about that?
He said it's going to be a 10-year taper. Wean off it in 10 years. We're not going to go cold turkey.
This doesn't mean anything because the aid that we give to Israel, which is $4.2 billion, is a fraction of the money that we actually give them. Because only in the past two years, America gave Israel $30 billion, only in two years, for all of the weapons that they're using since October 7th.
So this $4 billion is nothing, is really nothing, because there's other ways where Israel is taking away our money. There is money outside of the aid, there is direct military aid. there's the amount of money being donated in evangelical Christian churches.
As a matter of fact, I think I read somewhere, you can actually use perplexity for this, the non-governmental donation to Israel is more than $4 billion. And you're talking about like poor people in the South, giving their money to the pastor and then they just like ship it to Israel.
All of these Christian churches, they are supporting Aliyah, which is the right of return, like making Aliyah for the Jewish people to come to Israel. And they're supporting and funding these trips with the donation money, which is crazy. So the fact that like, oh, we're gonna wean off after 10 years, like, what do you mean? You already like sucked us dry and then it's like, okay, it's enough.
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