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Speaker 1: Also media, and we're back.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Behind the Bastards Mohammad Ben Solomon

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Speaker 2: Episodes Extravaganza. WHOA, Yeah, I don't know. I don't know

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Speaker 2: how to introduce these episodes in an exciting way anymore.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about bad people, the worst, and one of

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Speaker 2: them is the current Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. When

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Speaker 2: we left off last episode, he had started what was

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Speaker 2: becoming a genocide and Yemen. He had partied with Pittbull

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Speaker 2: and he was orchestrating the downfall of his relative, Mohammad Benaief,

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Speaker 2: who was the crown Prince before him. How are we doing, Dave,

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Speaker 2: David Bell our guests.

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Speaker 3: I'm doing well. I'm doing very well.

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Speaker 2: Is doing Bell?

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Speaker 4: Or?

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Speaker 3: I didn't have a new dream in between these episodes

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Speaker 3: that I could tell you about. That's probably it's just

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Speaker 3: the same dream from before.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that same upsetting dream.

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Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, just it wasn't It was a nice shower.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't dream to me a little bit.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't sexual.

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Speaker 2: That's good. The more you say it wasn't sexual, But

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Speaker 2: the more I believe it wasn't sexual, that's how telling

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Speaker 2: someone something isn't sexual works.

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Speaker 3: It was weird because, like, I don't dream about you

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Speaker 3: often than you did. I wasn't thinking about the fact

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Speaker 3: that we were recording today, and so I'm like, that's interesting,

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Speaker 3: that's interesting that you made a came.

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Speaker 2: And now I am hurt. Why don't you dream about

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Speaker 2: me often?

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Speaker 3: Dave? I'm not always dreaming about Here's what I'll start

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Speaker 3: doing when I go to bed. I'll look at a

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Speaker 3: photo of you every night. All right, that's good, nothing

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Speaker 3: weird about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Dave. I will continue to have one

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Speaker 2: dream about you per week where we captain the USS

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Speaker 2: Enterprise together. Oh yeah, yeah, we would.

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Speaker 3: Do terrible things. We would.

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Speaker 2: We would that is not going to end well for

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Speaker 2: anyone on board the ship.

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Speaker 3: We would keep my go to every time I'd be

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Speaker 3: hit with like a moral dilemma or like a problem,

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Speaker 3: I just go beat them into space.

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Speaker 2: Moving on, Get those assholes into space right now?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, into space? Here we go, just a trail of bodies.

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Speaker 2: The Enterprise. That's the ship that keeps beaming people into space.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the one move.

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Speaker 2: I just watched The New Starfleet Academy, the first two episodes,

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Speaker 2: and it is missing that whenever these are there's all

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Speaker 2: these bad guys. Uh, there's the guy from Sideways on

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Speaker 2: your ship just being into space. Get his ass, beam

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Speaker 2: him into space.

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Speaker 3: Him into space? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Oh god? You know who else was in the classic

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Speaker 2: movie Sideways? Dave who Prince Mohammed Ben Solomon?

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Speaker 3: Uh huh that chicks out?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he was the He was on one of the

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Speaker 2: two male leads in Sideways. Pretty much basically close enough.

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Speaker 2: Sure so, perhaps the key defining characteristic of Mohammed bin

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Speaker 2: Salmon the most explains his success within the closed world

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Speaker 2: of the Saudi royal family is simply the fact that

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Speaker 2: he's got energy and he wants to do things. I

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Speaker 2: cannot overemphasize how lazy most of these guys are.

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Speaker 3: I mean that's America too at this point where it's like,

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Speaker 3: well are they eighty? No, Okay, that's great.

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Speaker 2: It's it's like again if you go to like nepotism

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Speaker 2: with like the sons and daughters of like in Hollywood Royalty,

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Speaker 2: where when you get that one guy who's like he's

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Speaker 2: got the famous name and he's like no, no, no,

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Speaker 2: like I will cover my body and shit and roll around.

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Speaker 2: Does the role want me to be covered in shit

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Speaker 2: and squirming around like a grub.

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Speaker 3: I'll do it.

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Speaker 2: I don't give I have no ego about this. I

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Speaker 2: don't give a fuck. Like and it's like, well, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you're gonna have a career, Nicholas.

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Speaker 3: That was my Lily Rose death watching he knows Faratu

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Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, you're willing to like.

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Speaker 2: Oh you're weird, do it? You don't give a fuck? Yeah, right, okay,

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Speaker 2: we can work with that. Yeah, yeah, you get to

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Speaker 2: be a star. Mohammed ben Salomon is is like the

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Speaker 2: Lily Rose dep of the Saudi royal family. You know,

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Speaker 2: a lot of people, a lot of people have been

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Speaker 2: saying that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So in twenty sixteen, he continues both the war and

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Speaker 2: Yemen and his conflict with Muhammad bin Nayef, and he

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Speaker 2: launches a new war against one of the most powerful

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Speaker 2: blocks in the kingdom, the religious police. Now the Mutawa

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Speaker 2: or haya as they are also called, had been seen

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Speaker 2: as almost untouchable by his predecessors. Right, these are the

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Speaker 2: police of ice and virtue. These are the guys we're

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Speaker 2: going around making sure you're not disobeying like the religious law.

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Speaker 3: Right, fun police.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, these are they're literally the literal fun police, right,

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Speaker 2: and the men, and his father's generation and Mbian's generation

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Speaker 2: would not fuck with these guys, right, Like they were

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Speaker 2: scared of them. They really wanted them in their corner.

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Speaker 2: But by twenty sixteen things had started to change. More

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Speaker 2: than sixty five percent of Saudis were under thirty, and

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Speaker 2: the young men of this generation had grown up with

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Speaker 2: access to the Internet and social media. They and their

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Speaker 2: peers shared their frustration with the abuses of the religious police. Right.

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Speaker 2: They were talking to each other about how annoying these

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Speaker 2: fuckers were, right right.

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Speaker 3: They're on the internet. They're like, hey, everybody else is

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Speaker 3: having fun. Yeah, Like we're learning about fun police.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the man who would be king Karen House

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Speaker 2: describes the fun Police's mo For decades, thousands of these men,

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Speaker 2: often self appointed members of the Committee to Promote Virtue

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Speaker 2: and Prevent Vice, had roamed Saudi streets carrying a long stick,

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Speaker 2: forcing women to cover their heads, hurting Saudis into the

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Speaker 2: mosket prayer time and sharing all shops and stores locked

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Speaker 2: their door for half an hour at prayer time. And

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Speaker 2: that Western influence like Barbie dolls or Pokemon cards didn't

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Speaker 2: pollute Saudi youth in the waning years. Yeah, they're good

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Speaker 2: after Pokemon card.

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Speaker 3: Listen, it's if you're I know, it's not the same thing.

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Speaker 3: But if you if you start a cult, right, one

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Speaker 3: of the key things you gotta do to maintain that

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Speaker 3: it makes your people are having fun, right.

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Speaker 2: There gotta be something, right, Yeah, you just.

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Speaker 3: Can't like if you're like, no Pokemon cards, it's like,

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Speaker 3: this is not going to last.

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Speaker 2: If you're saying no Pokemon cards, but you can all

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Speaker 2: wife swap, then you might be able to keep a

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Speaker 2: cult going. But if you're saying no swipe wipe swapping

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Speaker 2: and no Pokemon cards, what's gonna keep people there?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Right, you're out of business.

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Speaker 2: You're out of business. You gotta you gott at least

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Speaker 2: to get them on drugs or something, you know.

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Speaker 3: Goddamn Pokemon cards. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: To continue from that quote, in the waning years of

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Speaker 2: the late King Abdullah's rule, the Hya had gotten completely

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Speaker 2: out of control. Hearing music inside one family's car, the

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Speaker 2: religious police chased the car until it rolled off an overpass,

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Speaker 2: killing the driver and injuring his wife and two young children.

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Speaker 2: A few months later, two young Saudi's died when HYA members,

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Speaker 2: suspecting alcohol, chase the young men's car bumping it at

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Speaker 2: high speed, causing the car to roll off a bridge.

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Speaker 2: The religious police fled the scene still. Six members of

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Speaker 2: the Hia were later acquitted off all charges. Saudi's tweeted

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Speaker 2: their anger or on social media the higher are bloodthirsty.

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Speaker 2: At Tallal tweeted. At Nahar wrote the highest situation is

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Speaker 2: similar to many governmental entities in Saudi. They all need

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Speaker 2: restructuring and fixing. So these guys are just a menace

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Speaker 2: right where it's like they might be drunk, ram them

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Speaker 2: off the road, you know, like they're cops. All cops

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Speaker 2: are kind of more alike than different, right, It's a

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Speaker 2: happy family situation.

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Speaker 3: If you're okay. When I was a dishwasher, food stop

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Speaker 3: becoming food. It was just this thing right where you're

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Speaker 3: just like, I'm just doing this thing. When you're a

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Speaker 3: cop of any kind, people stop becoming people. Just what happens,

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Speaker 3: which is why I don't know. People should only be

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Speaker 3: cops for like a few weeks at a time and

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Speaker 3: then we swap it out.

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Speaker 2: If you're gonna have cops, it should be a job

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Speaker 2: where everyone is a cop for a little while and

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Speaker 2: let me because you know what doesn't get enforced them

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Speaker 2: is bullshit rules, right if everyone has to take them,

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Speaker 2: and you're like, wait, I gotta got to enforce Merrijuana

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Speaker 2: loss No that yeah, yeah, anything is better than having

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Speaker 2: it just be like a job that a group of

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Speaker 2: people hold and to protect their power, need to like

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Speaker 2: protect their right to continue doing it with even greater

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Speaker 2: bloodthirstiness and anything.

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Speaker 3: Just make cats cops, just just replace all cops cops.

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Speaker 2: Especially Every cat has a drone with a gun on it,

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Speaker 2: so when the cat needs to shoot somebody, the drone

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Speaker 2: just starts firing, like whenever the cat gets angry, it

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Speaker 2: just starts blasting. Get down, Get down the cat's angry

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Speaker 2: food bowl.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're not wrong, but it's still better.

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Speaker 2: Than what we have. Right if protesters, right now, we're

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Speaker 2: instead of trying to fight squadrons of like armored police

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Speaker 2: with tanks and machine guns, there were just a bunch

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Speaker 2: of cats with robots firing blindly into the air because

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Speaker 2: they hadn't been let out and long enough at least

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Speaker 2: easier problem tosault, mister.

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Speaker 3: President, How did they get in here? How did they

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Speaker 3: overthrow the government? Well, sir, they had raw salmon on them. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: over we can do. Yeah, there's nothing.

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Speaker 2: So NBS's first move in his war against the religious

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Speaker 2: police was to ban them from stopping or detaining Saudi

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Speaker 2: citizens in public. Great, first start, right, the thing that

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Speaker 2: you were doing that was getting a lot of people killed,

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Speaker 2: you just can't do anymore. So you're not allowed to

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Speaker 2: just fuck with people in the world. His predecessors had

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Speaker 2: tried to curb the influence of religious hardliners, but failed,

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Speaker 2: most famously blocking for six years an attempt by King

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Speaker 2: Abdullah to make it legal for women to work in

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Speaker 2: lingerie stores selling underwear to other women, and like the

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Speaker 2: religious the hardliner clerics to be like, no, women can't work.

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Speaker 2: But then the problem is like, okay, so are men

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Speaker 2: supposed to sell lingerie?

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Speaker 3: So we have launch better, but women can't work in

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Speaker 3: the low like yeah, you know. The luger industry was like, guys.

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Speaker 2: Please, come on, you gotta give us something like what

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Speaker 2: got We just want to sell you people underwear?

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Speaker 3: But is wrong here? It's in here?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Where King Abdullah had been too frightened to confront

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Speaker 2: the Mattawa directly, Mohammed ben Salomon simply ignored their protestations

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Speaker 2: and used his father's absolute power to crush any opposition.

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Speaker 2: The public was wildly supportive of his actions, and conservatives

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Speaker 2: found themselves alone. Perhaps MBS's single most important quality was

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Speaker 2: his ability to understand how the youth of Saudi Arabia felt.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't just the morality police. Regular citizens knew it

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Speaker 2: was impossible to get anything done through the government without bribery.

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Speaker 2: The poor majority of the country were forced to watch

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Speaker 2: while a handful of princes siphoned away the oil money

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Speaker 2: that was supposed to be funding social programs and infrastructure.

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Speaker 2: Right Like, people are pissed about this, and so NBS

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Speaker 2: has a lot of support as he sets about dismanding

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Speaker 2: his enemies the forces he saw is holding Saudi Arabia

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Speaker 2: and his own ambition back. He later said this of

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Speaker 2: his decision to crack down or on the religious police.

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Speaker 2: I am young. I don't want seventy percent of the

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Speaker 2: Saudi population to waste their lives trying to get rid

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Speaker 2: of this. We want to do it now, right, and

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Speaker 2: this is we're going from like the genocide and the

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Speaker 2: orchestrating internal fights with his family where he's the bad guy,

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Speaker 2: to like, no, he's in the right side of this thing.

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Speaker 2: These guys suck.

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Speaker 3: To break situation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the only thing that we'll get rid of them

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Speaker 2: is a strong He's effectively the king, not literally, but

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Speaker 2: is a strong regent who's being the fuck it. That's

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Speaker 2: not how we do things anymore. I'm in chart right,

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Speaker 2: Like nothing else was going to fix the situation because

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Speaker 2: of how Saudi Arabia works. Right, I'm not saying every

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Speaker 2: country is this way. We don't need a king to

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Speaker 2: deal with the cops in our country. We could just

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Speaker 2: stop having them be immune to everything. But whatever.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like when Trump gets something right, it's like

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Speaker 3: you don't have to hand it to him, you know.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, it's like, yeah, he is right. Those those

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Speaker 2: little Japanese trucks are pretty sweet. We should be able

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Speaker 2: to buy us here. Yeah, yeah, we don't need just

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Speaker 2: f three fifties. We could use some little k's or whatever,

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Speaker 2: or the Korean I forget which those little bitty trucks.

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Speaker 2: We should. We need little bitty trucks here. He's right,

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Speaker 2: you need that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we need little bitty trucks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's every anytime it's something truck related. He's got

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Speaker 2: like a fifty percent chance of being right because he

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Speaker 2: seems to just be a guy who periodically sees trucks

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Speaker 2: and goes, ooh those two.

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Speaker 3: The guy seems to know trucks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I trust think he just likes them.

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Speaker 3: If he was like Secretary of Trucks, I'd be fine

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Speaker 3: with that, you know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like that video where he's inside that big

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Speaker 2: dump truck or whatever pretending to drive around, and I'm like, no,

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Speaker 2: that looked pretty fun. I'd be making the little faces too,

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Speaker 2: Like who would do that?

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Speaker 3: Most human moment for him?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the no.

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Speaker 3: Just getting rid of the fun police. Anybody could have

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Speaker 3: done it.

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Speaker 2: But anybody and everyone should have before him. It's shocking that,

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Speaker 2: but like, he's the guy who does it right. By

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Speaker 2: the end of twenty seventeen, he had developed a somewhat

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Speaker 2: earned reputation as a reformer, but he was also the

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Speaker 2: architect of what the international community was openly calling a

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Speaker 2: humanitarian catastrophe and potentially an act of genocide. A twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty one report by Watana for Human Rights, an independent

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Speaker 2: Yeomeni human rights organization, concluded that by November of two

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Speaker 2: thousand and fifteen, the Kingdom was aware of a food

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Speaker 2: and security crisis in the regions they were striking. Over

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Speaker 2: the next two years, NBS's Saudi led coalition increasingly and

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Speaker 2: purposefully used hunger as a weapon to try and force

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Speaker 2: hoothy surrender. Martha Mundy, an expert on Yemen, quotes a

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Speaker 2: senior Saudi diplomat who described the coalition strategy this way.

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Speaker 2: Once we control them, we will feed them.

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Speaker 3: Huh hah. Is that the plan? Yeah? Okay, that's a

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Speaker 3: good plant.

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Speaker 2: You know you're the sistic cries right, like, first off,

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Speaker 2: that's bad guy talk.

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Speaker 3: I want to conte super villain.

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Speaker 2: Yes, continue by quoting from a twenty twenty five article

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Speaker 2: in the Journal for Genocide Research unnoticing Yemen. A UN

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00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:09,040
Speaker 2: panel of experts similarly determined and a report published in

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Speaker 2: January twenty eighteen that the Saudi blockade is essentially using

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Speaker 2: the threat of starvation as a bargaining tool and an

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Speaker 2: instrument of war. The Yemen Data Project, a major source

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Speaker 2: of information about Yemen, has documented the persistence of the

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Speaker 2: tendency of the Saudi coalition to target civilian places and infrastructure.

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Speaker 2: Almost a third of all coalition air strikes throughout the

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Speaker 2: war have been aimed at such targets, especially at farms.

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Speaker 2: Right so they are. Food is a weapon.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: That's a lot of people in a fund way, but

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Speaker 2: not in a fun way, not in a fun way,

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Speaker 2: not like on a food fight way. Yes, Dave. Despite

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Speaker 2: each new atrocity, there appeared to be no end in sight.

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Speaker 2: King Solomon had taken power and brought his son with him,

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Speaker 2: but they'd inherited an utter mess of an economy. Oil

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Speaker 2: revenue accounted for eighty percent of the federal budget, but

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Speaker 2: global oil prices had collapsed, leading to a fifty percent

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Speaker 2: decline in revenue. One of King Solomon's first moves was

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Speaker 2: to bring in the kingdom's foreign currency reserves. With one

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Speaker 2: hundred billion dollar budget deficit and the warring Yeomen alone

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Speaker 2: costing half a billion dollars a month, the World Bank

305
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Speaker 2: estimated Saudi Arabia could only afford to go on for

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Speaker 2: four years before running out of money. There was no

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Speaker 2: way to begin tackling the problem without cutting benefits to

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Speaker 2: Saudi citizens, much of this in the form of benefits

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Speaker 2: to government employees. These cuts slashed the average Saudi man's

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Speaker 2: income by around fifty percent. That's how to the boned.

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Speaker 2: Because these people, all their jobs are fake, and all

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Speaker 2: their jobs are like, oh, you know, to use a typewriter.

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Speaker 2: There's an extra twenty percent to your salary, right, that's

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Speaker 2: the stuff he's getting.

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Speaker 3: Hey, we talked about that where it's like, sorry, guys,

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Speaker 3: nothing you do matter. So you're kind of you know.

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Speaker 2: And the country's fallen apart now because of the war.

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Speaker 2: The Prince launch.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we want to do this war. So we're going

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Speaker 3: to pay you less to do nothing. No, what's a

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Speaker 3: hero in this?

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Speaker 2: I guess when's a hero?

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Speaker 3: But also I would be pissed. I'm like, listen, you

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Speaker 3: promised me money to do nothing for a very long time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you promised me money for nothing. In the Chicks

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Speaker 2: for free, man, I don't have exact.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I'm spoiled, but I don't want less money

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Speaker 3: so you can go to a war.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the chicks still aren't free, you know.

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Speaker 3: No, No, we're.

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Speaker 2: Not even allowed to play guitar. Well, actually now we are.

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Speaker 2: We are allowed to play the guitar.

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Speaker 3: Now, that's sobbing.

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Speaker 2: It's something right, and the man who would be King

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Speaker 2: Karen House rights. Despite warnings from some of his ministers

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00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:26,520
Speaker 2: that economic growth would grind to a halt, MBS preceded

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00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:29,240
Speaker 2: to add insult to injury. The Saudi Civil Service Minister

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00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:32,240
Speaker 2: took to television to accuse government employees of working only

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Speaker 2: an hour a day. These cuts were paired with slashes

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00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:38,400
Speaker 2: to subsidized water power and gasoline. Fuel prizes rose by

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Speaker 2: fifty percent, bringing gas up to a horrifying ninety six

342
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Speaker 2: cents per gallon. When Saudi economists described the situation thuslye

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Speaker 2: we had Christmas every day and Gridge has stolen it.

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Speaker 3: First, it's a hero.

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Speaker 2: Now it's a hero. Like shit, man, Like, should you

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00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:56,360
Speaker 2: have had Christmas every day? Is that a good way

347
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Speaker 2: to run a country?

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00:16:57,560 --> 00:16:57,720
Speaker 4: Well?

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Speaker 3: So, I like, I'm all for living in a utopian

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Speaker 3: society where it's Christmas every day.

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Speaker 2: But not when it's being paid for by oil money.

352
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:10,480
Speaker 2: It's only Christmas for a tiny chunk of the population.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, where it's just this group at the cost of

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Speaker 3: everybody else. That's not good. But I understand that it's

355
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Speaker 3: It's that sort of thing where everybody thinks of the

356
00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:21,480
Speaker 3: underdog of their own life. It doesn't matter how rich

357
00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:23,560
Speaker 3: you are, you want more and you feel like you're

358
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Speaker 3: not getting enough. So it's like these people clearly were

359
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:31,080
Speaker 3: living in their little utopia and then they're like, sorry,

360
00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:35,120
Speaker 3: life has to get slightly realer for you, and they're.

361
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Speaker 2: Like, this is bullshit, bullshit, you want me to do stuff? Yeah. No.

362
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Speaker 2: So government spending was a huge problem, as was the

363
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Speaker 2: fact that basically no citizens were working, but just annihilating

364
00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:49,600
Speaker 2: everyone's income turned out to have negative impacts. By the

365
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:52,960
Speaker 2: start of twenty seventeen, economic growth was at point four percent,

366
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Speaker 2: a state of affairs most economists would describe as fucked up.

367
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Speaker 2: Social media boiled with resentment, A protest movement began to

368
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Speaker 2: bubble up up and on April twenty second of twenty seventeen,

369
00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:05,400
Speaker 2: King Solomon was forced to issue a royal decree declaring

370
00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:09,240
Speaker 2: takes these backsies on all cuts and allowances, benefits and bonuses.

371
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:13,240
Speaker 2: The Civil Services Minister was fired for insulting Saudi workers,

372
00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:16,719
Speaker 2: and again he's right, these guys are at most, in

373
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Speaker 2: a lot of cases do it an hour a day

374
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Speaker 2: of work.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting because it's there's certain things in this that

377
00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:25,680
Speaker 3: I admire and then certain things where I'm like, again,

378
00:18:25,880 --> 00:18:29,200
Speaker 3: like okay, like I would love to not work much

379
00:18:29,240 --> 00:18:32,640
Speaker 3: and get paid, but I always great, Like it's definitely

380
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:34,840
Speaker 3: a sign that things are going bad. I do wish

381
00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:40,440
Speaker 3: more governments issued takes these backsies like policy. Yeah, yeah,

382
00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:43,600
Speaker 3: we're allowed to go. Hey, everybody, oops.

383
00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:46,760
Speaker 2: You know what the Department of Homeland Security was mistake, Yeah,

384
00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:49,640
Speaker 2: taking away the TSA. Just get on planes now, we'll

385
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:51,560
Speaker 2: figure it out, you know. Yeah, it works like the

386
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:54,760
Speaker 2: nineties again, just run right up to the plane, right.

387
00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:58,960
Speaker 3: But because that's not normalized, them doing that in this

388
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:01,480
Speaker 3: case is like, oh, you really fucked up. Hunh.

389
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:05,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you made a mistake. You realized that you

390
00:19:05,359 --> 00:19:06,960
Speaker 2: were about to be overthrown.

391
00:19:07,359 --> 00:19:08,600
Speaker 3: Yeah.

392
00:19:08,920 --> 00:19:11,720
Speaker 2: NBS was not fired after this fuck up, but his

393
00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:15,320
Speaker 2: popularity and reputation took a major hit. Perhaps one reason

394
00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:17,639
Speaker 2: why it was so hard for Saudi citizens to accept

395
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:19,760
Speaker 2: any cuts to their benefits was that they'd seen the

396
00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:23,399
Speaker 2: al Saud family's personal finances balloon during the same period,

397
00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:24,960
Speaker 2: and they have a point where it's like, yeah, you

398
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:27,280
Speaker 2: guys aren't really working a lot of you where you're

399
00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:30,280
Speaker 2: doing barely a job compared to what you're getting paid for.

400
00:19:30,640 --> 00:19:33,639
Speaker 2: But the al Soud family is worth an insane amount

401
00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:36,920
Speaker 2: of money and they do nothing at all. Right, even

402
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:39,560
Speaker 2: as the government revenues have collapsed, they continue to be

403
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:43,040
Speaker 2: the family net worth as this as the states' finances

404
00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:45,560
Speaker 2: are in free fall. The Soud family net worth is

405
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:49,760
Speaker 2: one point four trillion dollars. So I get why these

406
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:51,880
Speaker 2: people are like, we gotta make cuts.

407
00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:57,400
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? Yeah? The story of everything right

408
00:19:57,720 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 3: where it's like the rich people like, sorry, you're gonna

409
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:02,520
Speaker 3: have to tighten the belt. Yeah, I mean I need,

410
00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:05,240
Speaker 3: I need my super yacht. Yeah.

411
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,200
Speaker 2: Look, man, if I don't like I can only eat

412
00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:10,480
Speaker 2: one piece of steak per cow and we've got to

413
00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:12,840
Speaker 2: burn the rest of the cow. And oh yeah, no

414
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:15,800
Speaker 2: one else got light on the same private jet twice.

415
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:18,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm being a cow share. Yeah.

416
00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:22,480
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Now I will say one point four trillion dollars

417
00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:24,720
Speaker 2: is the networth of the family that is spread. There's

418
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:28,040
Speaker 2: tend like more than ten thousand descendants. Now it's not

419
00:20:28,119 --> 00:20:31,040
Speaker 2: evenly split up, right, right, but it is split up

420
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:33,159
Speaker 2: between them, you know, so it's not quite as insane,

421
00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:34,120
Speaker 2: but it's still a lot.

422
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,520
Speaker 3: You know, things Things are tense, right, It's like.

423
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:38,640
Speaker 2: Things are tense by mid twenty seventeen.

424
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:42,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because they basically it's like, I don't know,

425
00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:44,280
Speaker 3: it feels like the same vibes of if we were

426
00:20:44,320 --> 00:20:47,480
Speaker 3: on a lifeboat and I was like, sorry, I'm gonna

427
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:49,439
Speaker 3: shoot you because I want all the food. Also I

428
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:51,639
Speaker 3: don't like you. And then you realize there's no bullets

429
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 3: and you're like, sorry, never mind.

430
00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:56,439
Speaker 2: You know what that test just to test, Yeah, just

431
00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:59,680
Speaker 2: testing you guys, see if you ever ready to share

432
00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:01,119
Speaker 2: with me and running this boat.

433
00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 3: They're not wrong, but it sounds like he along with

434
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:06,480
Speaker 3: being like, we're cutting your money, but also by being

435
00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:08,919
Speaker 3: like and you deserve to have your money cut like

436
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:11,520
Speaker 3: it's yeah, like you're not doing anything, So.

437
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:14,679
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, you're not doing anything. But you

438
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:15,680
Speaker 2: know who is doing something?

439
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:20,000
Speaker 3: No, sorry, I don't know.

440
00:21:20,119 --> 00:21:23,239
Speaker 2: Sponsors of this podcast. They're doing hard work. You know,

441
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,640
Speaker 2: they're earning their pay. If you let them run Saudi Arabia,

442
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:31,280
Speaker 2: they'll they'll do it. You know they'll run it Saudi Arabia.

443
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:32,560
Speaker 3: They'll definitely do it.

444
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:43,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're back. I've run it too, by the way,

445
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 2: times do you run it too?

446
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:45,680
Speaker 3: Yeah?

447
00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:48,400
Speaker 2: I bet you could run, Dave. Yeah, what's your first move?

448
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:50,639
Speaker 3: I don't know if I can do it. I'm just

449
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:54,480
Speaker 3: saying I will do it. If someone was like, do

450
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:56,920
Speaker 3: you want to do this, I do it?

451
00:21:57,640 --> 00:21:58,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

452
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:00,880
Speaker 3: For at least a week, and then you'd never hear

453
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 3: from me again. Yeah, I would be dead. It's it's

454
00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 3: you know, but I'll do it.

455
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:10,119
Speaker 2: My first move. I'm changing the country's name to what

456
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:14,800
Speaker 2: from Saudi Arabia to Free Ecstasy Town. You know, we

457
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:17,440
Speaker 2: just let the tourist dollars flood in. We let those

458
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 2: Germans and Spaniards come on over. You know, someone will

459
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:23,520
Speaker 2: provide the ecstasy. That's not my job. They're in Free

460
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 2: Ecstasy Town right now, zero downsides.

461
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 3: That's so smart. What if? Okay, hold on, what if

462
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 3: like I named my apartment that like and put it

463
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:36,639
Speaker 3: on like got it, got it on like Google maps.

464
00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:39,159
Speaker 3: It's like free Ecstasy Town. Because you're right, is that

465
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:42,560
Speaker 3: if you do that and then people show up, eventually.

466
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:44,600
Speaker 2: There will be a free ecstasy exactly.

467
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:46,280
Speaker 3: It's a problem that I'm gonna.

468
00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 2: Come back in like two weeks and start the episode.

469
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,880
Speaker 2: So our friend David Bell has been raided by the Dea.

470
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 2: He flew too close to the sun.

471
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 3: That's just so smart. I don't know, that's such a

472
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:57,399
Speaker 3: smart idea.

473
00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 2: I think it'll work. I think it'll work anyway. Ads

474
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 2: and we oh we did? Are we back from ads?

475
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 2: Were I thought, what's wrong with me? What's wrong?

476
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:08,680
Speaker 3: Much ecstasy.

477
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:11,679
Speaker 2: By mid twenty seventeen, the King's son was in a

478
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:15,000
Speaker 2: very mixed position Politically. He'd earned accolades as a reformer

479
00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 2: for his hobbling of the religious police and his seeming

480
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:20,480
Speaker 2: support for some social liberalization, but he was also the

481
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 2: author of an unpopular austerity policy. The king and his

482
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 2: son faced increasing resistance, both from the populace and within

483
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 2: their own family. Mbin, who'd made no secret of his

484
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 2: critiques of MBS's policies, was an obvious rallying point for resistance,

485
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 2: and so on June twenty first, twenty seventeen, Mohammed bin

486
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 2: Salman acted to take him down. Karen House writes that

487
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 2: fateful evening of June twenty first, twenty seventeen, Mbien was

488
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 2: called to a palace in Mecca. Once there, his guards

489
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 2: were forbidden to accompany him. Inside, all phones were surrendered

490
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 2: to palace guards. Mbian was taken to a room where

491
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 2: Turkey Alashik, a contemporary and friend of MBS and now

492
00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 2: Minister of the General Entertainment Authority, and others began bullying

493
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 2: him to resign. Denied contact with his men and the

494
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 2: painkillers to which he was said to be addicted. He

495
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 2: finally succumbed early the next morning after Prince Khalid al Faisal,

496
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:10,640
Speaker 2: the governor of Mecca, urged him to obey the king.

497
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 2: Huh so that's how he gets rid of his cousin. Yeah, wow,

498
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 2: that was abrupt. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was super abrupt. Yeah.

499
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 2: And by the way, that fella Turkey ala Shikh who

500
00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 2: was handling like the torturing of Mohammed Bineef, like cutting

501
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,359
Speaker 2: him off from his guards and his painkillers and like

502
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 2: forcing him to resign. The guy who handles all that.

503
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 2: Do you know what? He got more? And he's become

504
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 2: famous for doing more recently.

505
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 3: Oh no, a hint.

506
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 2: He's the Minister of the General Entertainment Authority.

507
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:46,880
Speaker 3: What did he do?

508
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:49,359
Speaker 2: He's the guy who ran the Riad Comedy Festival that

509
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:59,159
Speaker 2: all our favorite comedians. Yeah baby, yeah, yeah, he's not

510
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 2: only in charge of it entertainment than the kingdom. He's

511
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:04,120
Speaker 2: been Salmon's hatchet man. Yes, yeah, he has a whole

512
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: prison named after him. Yes, the guy who paid Dave

513
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 2: Chappelle six million dollars.

514
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 3: I mean not surprised. I guess I don't know. Nah, did.

515
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 3: Who else was there? It was Louis k At that.

516
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he was, Yeah, pretty sure he was.

517
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the Simpsons moment with the burlesque house and

518
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 3: Barney comes out and they're like, oh, Barney, it's that

519
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,480
Speaker 3: where like Louis k At there. I'm like, yeah, yeah,

520
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 3: no one was shocked.

521
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, it's I don't feel any worse about

522
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 2: Louis c k or about Dave Chappelle that I did

523
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: previously about like, yeah, yeah, I bet they. If you

524
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 2: told me some comedians took millions of dollars from the

525
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:47,160
Speaker 2: Saudi royal family, those would have been my two first guesses, right,

526
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 2: not shocked.

527
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised by a lot of comedians, frankly,

528
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 3: because no, you're a comedian. I don't know. It's the

529
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:56,680
Speaker 3: same with Pitt Bull at that thing where I'm just like,

530
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 3: I don't like it, but I'm I guess I'm not surprised.

531
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:03,400
Speaker 2: I'm a little surprised by the well because I think

532
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,159
Speaker 2: most people, if you say, like you want to make

533
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 2: six million dollars for a day's work, you have to

534
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 2: make peace with working for a really bad man. But

535
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 2: all you have to do is something otherwise innocuous, most

536
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 2: people will do it, which isn't good. It's just six

537
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 2: million dollars. But if you have a lot of six

538
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 2: millions of dollars, that's to say, that's where it's like,

539
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:25,880
Speaker 2: what like you're not starving, you don't have to pay

540
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 2: for your your mom's dialysis.

541
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 3: Damn well. And that's the if most people was like

542
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 3: I did it, I wouldn't be like, I'm disappointed in you.

543
00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 2: I'd say so, yeah, I mean you still had student loans.

544
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, I get it.

545
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, can I have some? I guess yeah. But yeah,

546
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 3: when it's an already rich person, it's just like people

547
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 3: didn't need that. Yeah, but that's rich people.

548
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 2: That's rich people. That's how you get that rich. So

549
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 2: to the international public, it seemed as if the air

550
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 2: apparent and most powerful man in the Saudi security state

551
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 2: had completely collapsed overnight as a center of power. Now,

552
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 2: as we've covered, Muhammad bin Niev's position had been degrading

553
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 2: for years. Right, he was not totally well, He did

554
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 2: not have a grip on things, and MBS had been

555
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 2: slowly cutting him off from his sources of power for

556
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 2: several years. At this point. So this is the result

557
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 2: of a fairly long family conflict. For most of the

558
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 2: twenty first century, Saudi Arabia had been ruled not just

559
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 2: by the king, but by the Black Prince and another

560
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 2: senior prince, a guy named Sultan who headed the defense

561
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 2: ministry before MBS. All three of these men died between

562
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 2: twenty twelve and twenty sixteen. So now a year, just

563
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 2: like two years into King Solomon's being the king, right

564
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, he and his father have neutered the

565
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 2: clerics and the religious police. They've eliminated Crown Prince Naief

566
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 2: and the other crown princes who might have acted as

567
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 2: barriers to their total power were gone. They are the

568
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 2: ones running everything. There are no other major power centers.

569
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 2: They've done this in about two years, right, so this

570
00:27:57,240 --> 00:27:59,719
Speaker 2: is a very successful consolidation of power.

571
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 3: Have some game of throne and shit like.

572
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 2: Yeah it really is. Yeah. Now, all they had to

573
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 2: do was discipline a squabbling cadre of lesser princes and officials,

574
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 2: some of whom had supported rival princes and others who

575
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 2: of whom may have eventually represented a threat themselves. More

576
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 2: to the point, they were all corrupt and King and

577
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 2: Prince Salomon both knew their continued support would hing on

578
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 2: being seen as fighting corruption. In the fall of twenty seventeen,

579
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 2: Mohammed bin Salmon spoke before a major investment conference in

580
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 2: Riyad that had earned a reputation for being the Davos

581
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 2: of the Desert. In a bid to attract foreign investment

582
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 2: into the kingdom, he deliberately played down the country's connection

583
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 2: to Wahabism and announced that by June of twenty eighteen,

584
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia would finally allow women to drive. Hey, what

585
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 2: a reformer, huge move, what a feminist icon, Mohammad been Salomon.

586
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 3: It really is like if you have a society where, like,

587
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 3: I don't know, people are running around stabbing other people

588
00:28:58,040 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 3: randomly all the time.

589
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 5: This policy it's like the United Kingdom, Sure, yeah, like

590
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 5: shows up and they're like number one stabbing. Yeah we

591
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 5: would it didn't It wouldn't matter how like not progressive

592
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 5: they were.

593
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 3: We'd be like good for them. I like them. I'm

594
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 3: gonna vote for them. Like it's just yeah, really, low

595
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 3: bar is my.

596
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: Point, extremely low bar. The bar is in the fucking

597
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 2: below the toilet. It has been flushed into the sewer. Right, Yeah,

598
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 2: so this is also not quite the promise that it seems.

599
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 2: Now he avoids bringing up, and nobody present feels pressed

600
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 2: to ask about the Saudi women's rights activists who are

601
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 2: already in prison for campaigning for their right to drive

602
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 2: on stage at the Davos, like, there's already women in

603
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 2: Nobody's like, what about them? Are they getting out? And

604
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: NBS doesn't say shit about that. The next thing he

605
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 2: brings up on stage at the Davos of the Desert

606
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 2: event is an exciting history making new Project NEO or

607
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 2: n e O M, a city built as a one

608
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 2: Titanic wall, stretching from the Red Sea to the mountains.

609
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 2: The wallsized skyscraper covered in solar panels. The inside is

610
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 2: a whole climate controlled city. People. It's gonna be like

611
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: the perfect living place for human beings and our college

612
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 2: wall town.

613
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 3: Right.

614
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the book, NBS quote, businessmen would write the

615
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 2: laws and entice the world's top minds to innovate on

616
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 2: Saudi soil, planning for a post carbon future and taking

617
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 2: advantage of the Saudi sun. The city would be powered

618
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 2: by solar energies and staffed by so many robots that

619
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: they might outnumber the human inhabitants. Neom Mohammad ban Salmon said,

620
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 2: would cost five hundred billion dollars and be a place

621
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 2: for dreamers. It was not an economic development project, but

622
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 2: a civilizational leap for humanity. At that point, the lights

623
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 2: dimmed and a video like this one played, and Sophie's

624
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 2: gonna display that for you now, dave ah sweet.

625
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 4: For too long, humanity has existed within dysfunctional and polluted

626
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 4: cities that ignore nature. Now a revolution in civilization is

627
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 4: taking place. Imagine a traditional city and consolidating its footprint, cramit,

628
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 4: designing to protect and enhance nature. The line will be

629
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 4: home to nine million residents and will be built with

630
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 4: a footprint of just thirty four square kilometers, and we

631
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 4: are designing it to provide a healthier, more sustainable quality

632
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 4: of life. The line's communities are organized in three dimensions.

633
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 3: Man, now, so I love that they're Like? Too long

634
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 3: have cities not been wall based.

635
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 2: In big walls? Also, cities don't live in harmony with nature,

636
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 2: unlike a giant line. Right, like a huge silver wall

637
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 2: that cuts off birds from their migratory patter.

638
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, birds are gonna be smacking into that thing.

639
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 3: It's it's so tough because like when when when I

640
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 3: first heard of Wall City, right, I'm like, that's cool

641
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 3: and cyberpunk and like that's fun. Then watching that ad

642
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 3: where they take a city and cram it, I was like, oh, right,

643
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 3: that's that's that's blade Runner, right.

644
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 2: And it's there's some like bits of wisdom in that,

645
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 2: like denser urban developments are a lot easier on the

646
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 2: environment than sprawling ones. Sure, there's probably a future. One

647
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 2: of the suggested futures of how we would build cities

648
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 2: is that they are denser, which doesn't mean of low quality,

649
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 2: but like that they're that you have, like there's a

650
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 2: lot more space for nature. No one is suggesting a

651
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 2: giant wall hundreds of feet high and dozens of miles long,

652
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: Like I guess that's the insane thing to build.

653
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 3: It's neat because it's like what blade Runner would have

654
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 3: lived in. This is the thing. This is the issue

655
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 3: I have with everything from the goddamn cyber truck to this,

656
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 3: which is that I love this. I I'm not embarrassed

657
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 3: to say that I love the look at the cyber truck.

658
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 3: I love that bullshit futurist aesthetic. I know it looks

659
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 3: like shit objectively. But all these dildos it's the same problem,

660
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 3: which is like they're like, I want to make a

661
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 3: world like Star Trek, and I think, okay, so number one,

662
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 3: we get rid of money, and they're like, no robots,

663
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 3: and it's like.

664
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 2: No, just a lot of robots. Yeah, we just want

665
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: to make it tall, right.

666
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 3: They want to make it look like Star Trek. They

667
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 3: don't want to actually make it Star Trek, where it's

668
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 3: actually like, oh, we we eliminate like money, and we

669
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 3: we pour a bunch of efforts into medicine and lifting

670
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 3: up the lower classes. No, none of that. We just

671
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 3: want fucking cool, smooth things and like I get it,

672
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 3: so do I, but I'd rather have the other stuff first.

673
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, like wouldn't we all?

674
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wall City. I'm like, I guess, I mean, there's

675
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 3: too many of us. We should stay out in nature's way.

676
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's who's doing it. And again it's clearly

677
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 3: that they're just like they started with, like, he's clearly

678
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,879
Speaker 3: someone who's like, well City, that's cool, right, and.

679
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 2: That's a great idea as they went from there. We

680
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 2: may do a dedicated episode about this later because we

681
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 2: didn't have time in this but this is impossible. The

682
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 2: project is already run into terminal issues like it is.

683
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 2: Cost overflows are massive. The Kingdom's financial situation today is

684
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 2: still not good because again every effort to transition off

685
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 2: of being entirely reliant on oil money has failed, and

686
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 2: they never really got over a lot of these central

687
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:43,800
Speaker 2: issues that were massive problems for the country when MBS

688
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 2: took power. Like they've been patching over them, but there's

689
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 2: still problems. And the goal was to get a bunch

690
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 2: of foreign investment to make this thing possible. Again, they

691
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 2: were looking at five hundred billion dollars and it's likely

692
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 2: it'll cost way more than that if they were to

693
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,240
Speaker 2: actually finish this thing. They've dug a bunch of hole.

694
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 2: They've started construction. It's never going to get built. It's impossible.

695
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,399
Speaker 3: They're starting with the conclusion and not getting there. It's

696
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 3: again like the cyber truck. I think looks cool, but

697
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 3: it's clear that he started with the look and then

698
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 3: the insides are shit and don't make any sense. So

699
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 3: it's like you're not starting with that fundamental idea of

700
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 3: like how do people live? How should we how should

701
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 3: we build a city more efficiently? It started with what

702
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 3: if Wall makes that.

703
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 2: We're going to build the city of the future, where

704
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 2: like a modern society, you know, built by businessmen. All

705
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 2: of the world's innovators will want to live here. It's like,

706
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 2: but like alcohol still illegal and women right can't like

707
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 2: don't shit toget Like, yeah.

708
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 6: A very non original idea. Man's like, what if I

709
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 6: start a city? What if I make my own town

710
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 6: like that? That's a very common thing I fear. And

711
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 6: if you meet that guy, go please leave me alone

712
00:35:58,200 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 6: and then taste them.

713
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 3: It's a it's a teenager's dream where it's like you

714
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 3: draw a character where you're like, and he has a

715
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 3: cool sword and he's that like cool armor, and then

716
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 3: you think of like what's his personality? Like you're you're

717
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 3: going backwards right where you're like and it's that where

718
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,879
Speaker 3: they're just like cool Wall city, but are our our

719
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:22,280
Speaker 3: actual what they said, designed by businessman the laws.

720
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 6: Imagine meeting that guy at a.

721
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 2: Bar designed by businessman. Yes, just imagine.

722
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: Meeting that guy not knowing anything about him.

723
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 6: But the guy comes up to you and is like, yeah,

724
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:36,839
Speaker 6: I'm gonna build this uh city. The line it's just

725
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 6: like one really big wall right, you'd be like, please

726
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 6: get away from me.

727
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 2: You're terrifying.

728
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 3: I'd be like, are you Peter Teal? Are you Peter?

729
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 6: Oh, it's like classic libertarian ship.

730
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, it is such a libertarian boat city. Oh

731
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 2: my god.

732
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

733
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 3: Again, I'm not.

734
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 6: Cool if it was not just like every single time

735
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 6: it's like the worst people in the world are like exactly.

736
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 2: I would live on a boat if it was like

737
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 2: a pirate radio kind of situation, because that movie rips.

738
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 2: But I'm simply not going to live on a boat

739
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:14,360
Speaker 2: with a bunch of bitcoin guys.

740
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 3: I'd rather like That's the thing is, like I if okay,

741
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 3: if we can't get the good futuristic stuff, I still

742
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:21,919
Speaker 3: would be it would be cool if my house looked neat,

743
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 3: you know, like if I had some cyberpunk brutalist house,

744
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 3: Like that's something at least. But the best version of

745
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 3: this has ever been Walt Disney designing Epcot and being like,

746
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make a future city and then it got

747
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 3: too hard and he's like, you know what, I'm going

748
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 3: to make a theme park. Yeah, he goals, you know,

749
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:46,359
Speaker 3: he was like, Okay, I'm not the guy to make

750
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 3: a future city, the experimental prototype City of Tomorrow.

751
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 2: Turns out that sucks ass.

752
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll just put some fucking rides in there.

753
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,200
Speaker 1: Like he's like, not tomorrow but tomorrow Land.

754
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like good on him.

755
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:05,399
Speaker 2: As we've famous good guy.

756
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:07,800
Speaker 3: Well, this good.

757
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 2: Guy the real hero of these episodes.

758
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 3: It's a nice reminder that these rich dildos have been

759
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 3: trying to make cities for a.

760
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 2: Wivery because they all want to prove they can do

761
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 2: it better. They want to prove they know what's wrong

762
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 2: with society. But what none of them understand, and so

763
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 2: why this is impossible is that it's hard to make

764
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:29,279
Speaker 2: a good city or a good country because people are

765
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 2: messy and don't get along. And if your whole thing

766
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 2: is I don't understand people or like to listen to them,

767
00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 2: you're gonna fail.

768
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 3: It's that, and it's it's also like Disney famously was

769
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 3: also like, you know what, I hate zoning laws. These

770
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 3: rich people they also just don't like following the rules

771
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 3: of law. So they're like, oh, what if I made

772
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 3: a city and then it's everybody will love my cool city,

773
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 3: and then everybody has to do what I say.

774
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you forget to have any measures to

775
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,720
Speaker 2: prevent the outbreak of cholera. Uh right, so everybody dies.

776
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 3: Every libertarian city. I feel like every pitch falls apart

777
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 3: when you go, Okay, and what do you think the

778
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 3: age of consent will be there? Yeah? Like, because it's

779
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 3: always a dark answer.

780
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 2: I see the age of consenting, like, what's gonna who's

781
00:39:15,640 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 2: gonna be in charge of the poop? What's gonna happen

782
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 2: with the poop? You know, where's the poop gone?

783
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 3: Right? Where's the poop going?

784
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 2: Yeah? That's the if you're ever hanging out in like

785
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 2: an alternate living situation or where someone's trying to like

786
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,399
Speaker 2: build their own community and the first thing they show

787
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 2: you or close to the first thing isn't and here's

788
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 2: our toilet solution, those people are going to fail, right,

789
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:41,760
Speaker 2: you know, unless it's all around poop city, it's poop

790
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 2: city University, it's all poop oriented.

791
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 3: There you go, Dave, Yep, you take showers with your buddies. Okay, sorry, wow, sorry,

792
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 3: thanks Dave. So two weeks after going on this slightly

793
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 3: fevered Steve Job style rant about how the future was

794
00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 3: a big line city and a country where most people

795
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:02,720
Speaker 3: didn't think TV should be legal.

796
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 2: Mohammed had been well powerful people didn't think TV should

797
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,760
Speaker 2: be legal. Mohammad bin Salomon launched his final gambit towards

798
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 2: consolidating absolute power. He'd spent the days since the Big

799
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 2: Davos in the Desert event sending his secret police out

800
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,919
Speaker 2: to arrest and transport hundreds of the most powerful people

801
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 2: in the kingdom to one location. And this included multiple

802
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 2: members of the royal family as well as billionaire financiers

803
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 2: who had helped to build the nation's economy. These men

804
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 2: were taken to the Ritz Carlton and Riyad, one of

805
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 2: the finest hotels in the world. It was locked down

806
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 2: for normal business. Its staff was replaced by security officers

807
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:41,359
Speaker 2: and secret policemen. Guests were made to surrender their cell

808
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:44,480
Speaker 2: phones and devices. They were separated from their guards and

809
00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 2: sometimes vast fortunes. One of these men was Prince Alwalid

810
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 2: bin Tallul. He was the most famous businessman in the kingdom.

811
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 2: A billionaire great grandson of King Abdulaziz, Prince Alwalid was

812
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 2: as protected a nobleman as you could imagine. He was

813
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 2: called by the royal one morning in ordered to visit

814
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 2: the king another billionaire, while Lead al Ibrahim had found

815
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 2: himself in the same situation a day before. So these

816
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 2: are guys who should not have been vulnerable to something

817
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 2: like this, right, But the reality is, and King Salmon

818
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 2: knows this. These guys are not as rich in reality

819
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 2: as they seem to be on paper because for decades

820
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 2: they'd relied on the Saudi state purse and public funds

821
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 2: to prop up their bad investments and smooth over any

822
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,839
Speaker 2: mistakes they made. And all of the richest people in

823
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia were doing this. This is part of why

824
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:34,479
Speaker 2: the economy was in the shitter, is these guys start

825
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 2: making bad bets and they're using the kingdom as a

826
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 2: checkbook to cover their asses. So this mass detainment that

827
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 2: King Salomon orchestrates of all these guys sends a message

828
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 2: none of you are untouchable anymore. And I want to

829
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 2: quote from a summary of what happened by from an

830
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:53,800
Speaker 2: NBC report by Dan de Luce, Kindlanian and Robert Windram.

831
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:56,879
Speaker 2: The involuntary guests were told they had to sign away

832
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 2: large chunks of their assets to be released. The attention

833
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 2: involve both psychological abuse and in some cases torture. Current

834
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 2: and former US officials say the move, described by Saudi

835
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 2: authorities as a crackdown on rampant corruption, allowed the Crown

836
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 2: Prince to tighten his grip and sent a shockwave through

837
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 2: the kingdom as elites, This was a shakedown operation and

838
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 2: a power consolidation operation, said one former senior US official

839
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 2: who was in office at the time. The RITZ detentions

840
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 2: were designed to remind people going forward that their wealth

841
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 2: and their well being would depend on the Crown Prince

842
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:28,759
Speaker 2: and not on anything else, which is why it was

843
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 2: so upsetting for many in the royal family, said the

844
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,719
Speaker 2: former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. What

845
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 2: was that a quote from This is from an NBC report.

846
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 2: I just love yeah.

847
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 3: Involuntary guest, perfect.

848
00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, voluntary guest of the RITZ Carlton, Yes, may

849
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 2: have been tortured. Involuntary guest. Just call him prisoners at

850
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:54,760
Speaker 2: this point. So this is what brings us to Mohammed

851
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,800
Speaker 2: and Salmon's most notorious crime, although certainly not his worst,

852
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:03,240
Speaker 2: the brutal murder of Washington postureournalist Jamal Koshogi. Now, Jamal,

853
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 2: if you have haven't heard much about this guy, he

854
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 2: came from almost as rarefied a social circle as Mohammed

855
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 2: Bnsalman himself. His grandfather, a doctor, had treated MBS's grandfather,

856
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 2: the King. He was a close relative to billionaire arms

857
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 2: dealer ad Non Koshogi, who was involved in like eighty

858
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 2: percent of the shady deals that took place in the

859
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties. Jamal got involved in the Muslim Brotherhood while

860
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 2: in college, and he worked as a journalist for an

861
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 2: English language paper out of Jeddah. Once he graduated, he

862
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 2: winds up on the ground floor of reporting on the

863
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 2: Musjahdeen's resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Kashogi arguably

864
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,399
Speaker 2: crossed the line from reporter to participant during at least

865
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 2: one part of the conflict. He became a well known

866
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 2: figure within the world of Islamic militancy and secured an

867
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:51,879
Speaker 2: invitation to talk with another influential Saudi militant, Osama bin Laden. Right,

868
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 2: so this is a journalist who's reporting on this, you know,

869
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:59,280
Speaker 2: jihad against the Soviets. He'd at least at one point

870
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 2: crosses for being a journalist to being a combatant, and

871
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 2: as a result he has a lot of klout with

872
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 2: these other militants, and so he gets to hang out

873
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 2: with bin Laden. Now. Ultimately, Kashogi winds up disillusioned by

874
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 2: the failure of the revolution in Afghanistan. He had been

875
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 2: a guy who had hoped will create something better than

876
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:20,359
Speaker 2: what had existed before, if we can kick the Soviets out,

877
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 2: and instead we get the Taliban. And Kashogi's not delusional.

878
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 2: He can see the Taliban is bad, and so he

879
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,719
Speaker 2: comes home being like, well, that didn't fucking work, right, Yeah, shit,

880
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:32,479
Speaker 2: what do I do with my life now?

881
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 3: It's tough. It's tough when your buddy has become the Taliban.

882
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough when your buddies become the Taliban. Nobody

883
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 2: wants that to happen to their buddies. Dave, No, I'm

884
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 2: happy that you've continued writing for the Internet as opposed

885
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 2: to becoming the Taliban.

886
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 3: Right now, I had that crossroads, but yeah, it would.

887
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 2: Have been logistically confusing too, yeah oh yeah. Yeah. So

888
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 2: when he returns home to Saudi Arabi, he's arguably the

889
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 2: most influential journalist in the kingdom. He's one of them,

890
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 2: and he's developed close working relationships with several highly placed

891
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 2: members of the royal family, and he spends the next

892
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 2: couple of decades as both an influential critic and pillar

893
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:13,360
Speaker 2: of the power system. So he is integrated tightly within

894
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 2: kind of the upper strata of Saudi Arabia. He's very

895
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 2: well regarded. He's also someone who can periodically critique what

896
00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 2: decisions that are being made by the powerful in Saudi Arabia,

897
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 2: and he sees himself as like a mouthpiece for the

898
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 2: poor in Saudi Arabia, for the working class. As a

899
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 2: result of that, he can occasionally speak some truth to power,

900
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 2: right or speak truth to the rest of the world

901
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:36,399
Speaker 2: about what's going on in Saudi Arabia. That's at least

902
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 2: how you'll see this guy written about speaking of people

903
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 2: who speak truth to power. These ads will speak truth

904
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,280
Speaker 2: to the greatest power in the world. Your wallet, Wow,

905
00:45:48,480 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 2: not by wallet and we're back. So Jamal Kashogi, after

906
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 2: a period of time as one of the more influential

907
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 2: journalists in Saudi Arabia, is going to do kind of

908
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,440
Speaker 2: the most dangerous thing you can do in the kingdom,

909
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 2: which is express support for reforms that everyone knows are necessary,

910
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:19,239
Speaker 2: but that the Crown, Prince and King haven't embraced yet right,

911
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:22,000
Speaker 2: He's going to be ahead of the curve on some

912
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,279
Speaker 2: important things, and that's going to make him a lot

913
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:27,840
Speaker 2: of enemies. Ben Hubbard writes. He was appointed editor of

914
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 2: Al Watan newspaper and used it to push for women's

915
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: rights while criticizing the role of the religious establishment. He

916
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 2: didn't last long after all, Kaita bombings killed twenty five

917
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 2: people in Riyad in two thousand and three. Koshogi pinnon

918
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,879
Speaker 2: editorial attacking not only the terrorists but the clerics who

919
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 2: gave them power. Jamal wound up driven to the United States,

920
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 2: where he would live at time through the coming years,

921
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 2: whenever things got too hot for him. Back in the Kingdom,

922
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 2: he was predictably a big supporter of the Arab Spring,

923
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 2: which further caused consternation among the powerful. During the rise

924
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 2: of Isis, Koshogi compared the terrorist movements ideology to the

925
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 2: kingdom's own Wahabist beliefs. He initially supported Solomon as king

926
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 2: and was bullish on the reforms that he and MBS

927
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 2: introduced against the religious police and endemic corruption. So when

928
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 2: MBS first comes to power, Kaushogi's a big backer because

929
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 2: he sees this guy's kind of the answer to his prayers,

930
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 2: someone who will stick up to the worst and most

931
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 2: like conservative elements in our society. Right, this guy might

932
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 2: be a sign of hope. Koshogi acted for a while

933
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 2: as a dogged defender of the new king to international critics.

934
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 2: He was important enough to be included in a public

935
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:34,720
Speaker 2: meeting between Mohammed and Salmon and a group of clerics

936
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 2: and intellectuals in twenty sixteen. Ben Hubbard reports that MBS

937
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 2: talked to the crowd about his plans for economic and

938
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 2: political reform. Kashogi asked him, why don't you talk about

939
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 2: any of this in public? If you're in favor of

940
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:49,239
Speaker 2: all these reforms, why won't you tell people about them?

941
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 2: Why are we having this meeting in private? And Nbs says,

942
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,439
Speaker 2: in short, you can just write about what I've said here,

943
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 2: put it in the newspaper, tell everybody what I'm saying. Right,

944
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 2: I'm giving you permission to make this public, right, okay.

945
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 2: So Jamal is like, all right, I fucking will, and

946
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 2: he takes this as an invitation to report openly on

947
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 2: the Prince's crusade to modernize the kingdom. This would prove

948
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:11,359
Speaker 2: to be something of a.

949
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 3: Mistake, man, because it's like, yeah, go write it. I'd

950
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 3: be like, mmm, do you really want that?

951
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 2: Never trust the prince when he's like, oh, I want

952
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 2: a journalist to hold my feet to the fire. Are

953
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 2: you kidding me? Accountability That's what kings.

954
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 3: Love, man. I mean, I'm not blaming him, like, it's

955
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:36,640
Speaker 3: just like it's just like you can see it all

956
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 3: unfolding here. Yeah, because saying I'd go like, okay, yeah.

957
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 2: Ok I guess yeah. In the fall of twenty seventeen,

958
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:49,360
Speaker 2: having silenced his most powerful detractors, nbs A security forces

959
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 2: launched a crack down on their little enemies. Eighty dissidents

960
00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 2: were arrested. Most were clerics who were either too conservative

961
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 2: or too progressive. The rest were political reformers and as

962
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 2: been rights individuals who had annoyed MBS and his aids

963
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 2: in some way or another. One was an economist who

964
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 2: had questioned the wisdom of privatizing a Ramko. Another was

965
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 2: a poet who had called on journalists to avoid harsh

966
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 2: language and a dispute with Cutter. So these are just

967
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 2: guys getting arrested for bugging, you know, Turkey uh or

968
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,879
Speaker 2: Mohammed Ben Salomon you know, yes, for any reason.

969
00:49:21,840 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 3: I'm going to do my petty tour here, Mike asshole tour.

970
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 2: I've gotten rid of the big enemies. One prominent detainee

971
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,760
Speaker 2: was a cleric named Salmon Alauda. In his younger days,

972
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 2: he'd been an extreme fundamentalist, and he'd spent time in

973
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:38,080
Speaker 2: prison for demeaning the royal family arguing against their right

974
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 2: to rule. In more recent years, he'd become almost a progressive,

975
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 2: hosting popular shows on YouTube and television, and building a

976
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 2: massive younger following on social media with generally positive, upbeat

977
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 2: videos about Islam and modern life. What really got him

978
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:57,280
Speaker 2: in trouble was his growing embrace of constitutional monarchy. I'llauda

979
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,320
Speaker 2: frame this as an attempt to help the Kingdom and

980
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:01,799
Speaker 2: House of South avoid an Arab spring of their own.

981
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 2: He gently suggested that the government might try to listen

982
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:07,799
Speaker 2: to its people a little more, rather than governing by

983
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 2: the whims of Mohammed bin Salmon and his ailing father.

984
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 2: He was arrested and has been held in solitary confinement

985
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:16,719
Speaker 2: from September of twenty seventeen up to the present day.

986
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:19,759
Speaker 2: His brother complained about the arrest on Twitter and has

987
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 2: also been detained. If his case ever comes to trial,

988
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 2: he could get the death penalty, although given the fact

989
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 2: that his health is deteriorated by in bars, that may

990
00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 2: not be he could be dead now I don't think

991
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 2: we know. Um wow, there's a lot of guys like that.

992
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 2: The whole RITZ Carlton affair was carried on in a

993
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,759
Speaker 2: very hush hush manner by the Kingdom Security Forces. They

994
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,440
Speaker 2: obviously wanted everyone to know the broad strokes of what

995
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,839
Speaker 2: had gone down, and there were specific names they wanted publicized,

996
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 2: but the government never released a comprehensive list of names,

997
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 2: and only accused them vaguely of intelligence activities for the

998
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 2: benefit of foreign parties and engaging in espionage while having

999
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 2: contact with external entities. The Muslim Brotherhood was named as

1000
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: a specific example. Long term consequences ranged from prison terms

1001
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 2: to home detention. Some people were let go entirely with

1002
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 2: the equivalent of a warning. Nearly all spent days or

1003
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 2: weeks detained at the RITZ without any charge or clear

1004
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 2: idea of what crimes they were expected to answer to.

1005
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 2: Some were certainly executed, Although it's impossible for us to

1006
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:19,879
Speaker 2: make any clear estimates about how many people suffered. Want punishments.

1007
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 3: The crime was bugging him. It was crime was bugging them.

1008
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 2: Bugging them, Yeah, bugging him or other people like you, Yes,

1009
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:32,760
Speaker 2: the two great crimes. On June twenty fourth, twenty eighteen,

1010
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:36,280
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia officially lifted its ban on women driving. Prince

1011
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 2: Alwalid bin Tallal, fresh off being released from the RITZ

1012
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 2: praised the move on social media and went on a

1013
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 2: public drive with his daughter and granddaughter. He tweeted, there

1014
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 2: is no doubt that the thoughts of my brother Mohammed

1015
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,439
Speaker 2: ben Salomon led to this great result. Women have now

1016
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 2: taken off gotten their freedom. That's all they needed was

1017
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:52,839
Speaker 2: to drive.

1018
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 3: God that may.

1019
00:51:55,400 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 2: Mere weeks earlier, NBS's police had carried out a massive

1020
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 2: crackdown on women's rights activists. Ten women and seven men

1021
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 2: at least were arrested over their work campaigning to end

1022
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 2: the driving band that Muhammad himself Ben Solomon himself had

1023
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:12,479
Speaker 2: ordered ended. From an article in The Guardian, Amnesty said

1024
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:14,840
Speaker 2: that according to three testimonies it obtained, some of the

1025
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:18,359
Speaker 2: activists were repeatedly given electric shocks and flogged, leaving some

1026
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 2: unable to walk or stand properly, and one instance an

1027
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:23,920
Speaker 2: activist was hung from the ceiling. Another testimony said one

1028
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:27,239
Speaker 2: of the detained women was subjected to sexual harassment by

1029
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:31,799
Speaker 2: interrogators wearing face masks. Jesus, so these are this is

1030
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:35,280
Speaker 2: like weeks before he ends the band, and their crime

1031
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 2: is not that they want the band in. The crime

1032
00:52:37,520 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 2: is that they're advocating. They're saying that the country's doing

1033
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:43,840
Speaker 2: something wrong, that a law needs to change because it's wrong,

1034
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 2: and that's criticism. We can't have that, no, sir.

1035
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 3: It's just that it's that fucking that vibe, right, the

1036
00:52:51,680 --> 00:52:56,799
Speaker 3: like hashtag girl boss vibe where it's like on top

1037
00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:00,439
Speaker 3: of just some of the worst things ever, it's short

1038
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 3: circuits your brain where they're like patenting themselves on the

1039
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:05,719
Speaker 3: back at the same time they're doing this.

1040
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just setting yeah, yeah, yeah, you hate to

1041
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 2: see it. A Saudi female race car driver and again

1042
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:18,839
Speaker 2: there's this, there's weeks long pr push in the wake

1043
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 2: of this. A Saudi female race car driver is given

1044
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 2: her license in a grand ceremony in Riod and allowed

1045
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:27,600
Speaker 2: to take a celebratory lap through the capitol. Weeks before

1046
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 2: she would help to open the French Grand Prix. Journalists

1047
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 2: were warned that she would not make any comment about

1048
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 2: women's rights. This eloquently showcased Ben Salmon's attitude towards social progress.

1049
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 2: He would do the minimum necessary, but he would also

1050
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 2: brutally punish anyone who made the mistake of embracing change

1051
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,279
Speaker 2: before he did, and he'd expect to be right.

1052
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,440
Speaker 3: It's just I'm going to give you what I give you,

1053
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:51,719
Speaker 3: and you better not ask for more, and you.

1054
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 2: Better not have asked for what I'm giving you previously.

1055
00:53:54,520 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 6: Because he wants people to like him, he wants to

1056
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 6: he wants to be worshiped.

1057
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're also to praise me every step of the way.

1058
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 2: You're going to be thanking me for what I've given you.

1059
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 3: I mean, we had a discussion like that, you know,

1060
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:08,680
Speaker 3: when we legalized weed. It became this thing of like

1061
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 3: maybe we should let the people in jail for that. Yeah,

1062
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:16,399
Speaker 3: Like it's it's similar. But except if you say that,

1063
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 3: you'll be executed.

1064
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:24,000
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you shouldn't say that. So yeah. Luayne al

1065
00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 2: Hathlul had gained notoriety in twenty fourteen when she was

1066
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:30,040
Speaker 2: arrested for trying to drive her car from the UAE

1067
00:54:30,239 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 2: into Saudi Arabia. She was released after more than seventy

1068
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 2: days in prison the month after Salomon was made king.

1069
00:54:36,560 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 2: This was initially seen as a reason for optimism towards

1070
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 2: the new king and his son. Al Hathlul had continued

1071
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:45,560
Speaker 2: to speak out against the kingdom's laws and participated in

1072
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 2: a major foreign documentary that criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights record.

1073
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 2: She'd been living overseas with her husband when she returned

1074
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 2: home in twenty seventeen and was arrested as part of

1075
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:59,360
Speaker 2: NBS's wider crackdown on dissent. She was released and expanded

1076
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,360
Speaker 2: the scope of her activism, pushing against the kingdom's guardian

1077
00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 2: ship laws, which made women basically legal miners in perpetuity.

1078
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 2: She was invited to speak at the UN where she

1079
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 2: directly called kingdom representatives out for denying the existence of

1080
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:14,959
Speaker 2: guardianship laws. This was the straw that broke the camel's back.

1081
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 2: A month after this, she was kidnapped from her home

1082
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:20,320
Speaker 2: in Abu Dhabi and flown to Saudi Arabia. She was

1083
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 2: released after a month, but forbidden from leaving the country. Then,

1084
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 2: just before the driving band was repealed, she was swept

1085
00:55:26,120 --> 00:55:29,200
Speaker 2: up in a mass arrest with other prominent women's rights activists,

1086
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 2: and this is like part of this big sweep that

1087
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:35,960
Speaker 2: I had talked about just a second ago. Right Punishments

1088
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:38,160
Speaker 2: for these activists and their supporters ran the gamut, from

1089
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 2: jail time to travel bands to torture. The Kingdom's captive

1090
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 2: news media embarked in a campaign of slandering the reputations

1091
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:48,359
Speaker 2: of those incarcerated, and some prisoners, including al Hdlul, were

1092
00:55:48,360 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 2: tortured by officers of the Rapid Intervention Group. This was

1093
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 2: a recently assembled team of black ops guys overseen by

1094
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,319
Speaker 2: a guy named Sawud al Katani, and operated as the

1095
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:02,120
Speaker 2: personal enforcers of Muhammeddan's Solomon. Anyone who annoyed him was

1096
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 2: fair game for kidnapping, torture, and murder. The women were

1097
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 2: kept in tiny rooms with covered windows. They were taken

1098
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 2: to be interrogated and tortured frequently by men who mostly

1099
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 2: wanted to humiliate them. They were sexually harassed a lot.

1100
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 2: They were shocked with like cattle prods. They were just

1101
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:22,279
Speaker 2: beaten the old fashioned way. El Hathlwell was waterboarded on

1102
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 2: several occasions. Al Katani oversaw her torture directly. Sometimes he

1103
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:29,360
Speaker 2: would threaten to rape her repeatedly and throw her body

1104
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 2: in the sewer. This is the kind of stuff that

1105
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 2: they're doing. And they're doing this during Ramadan. He and

1106
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 2: his men are torturing her throughout the night.

1107
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:37,359
Speaker 3: Uh.

1108
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 2: And they forced her to eat after the sun comes up,

1109
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 2: when she's not supposed to be eating. So, yeah, this

1110
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 2: is a pretty gross stuff, right.

1111
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,799
Speaker 3: I don't know, Robert, because because Dave Chappelle said it's

1112
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:52,120
Speaker 3: easier to talk in Saudi Arabia.

1113
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:53,719
Speaker 2: It's easier to talk in Saudi Arabia unless.

1114
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 3: Because of wokeness here they don't have Jesus's fucking Christ. Yeah, horrific.

1115
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be operatives of the same Rapid Intervention

1116
00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:06,920
Speaker 2: Group that Mohammad bin Salmon called upon to murder now

1117
00:57:06,920 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 2: dissidant journalist Jamal Kashogi. He had written critically if the

1118
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,399
Speaker 2: princes ritz Carlton kidnapping spree the previous year and about

1119
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 2: the ongoing detention of women's driving advocates. What he didn't

1120
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 2: know was that mere months before MBS started his campaign

1121
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 2: to destroy a cent, he sent agents of his Rapid

1122
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 2: Intervention Group, mostly military veterans, to the US so they

1123
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 2: could train with a private security firm the Tier one Group.

1124
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,240
Speaker 2: Per The New York Times, the mercenary firm Quote is

1125
00:57:31,280 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 2: owned by the private equity firm Serveris Capital Management. The

1126
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 2: company says the training, including safe marksmanship and countering an attack,

1127
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 2: was defensive in nature and designed to better protect Saudi leaders.

1128
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 2: One person familiar with the training Senate also included work

1129
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:49,560
Speaker 2: in surveillance. Yes, said the good Man. It's Serverist Capital

1130
00:57:49,600 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 2: Management have a private army that the trade Mohammad bin

1131
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:55,040
Speaker 2: Salmon's goon squad.

1132
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 3: Rich people for the longest time. It's the weirdest thing

1133
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:03,280
Speaker 3: that how how are just like palenteer, Like they're just

1134
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:06,400
Speaker 3: you know what, We're not gonna even murnerk. Yeah, We're

1135
00:58:06,480 --> 00:58:08,280
Speaker 3: just we're let's call it like it is. It's like

1136
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 3: the only honesty they have. It's so weird. Yeah.

1137
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, my new capital management firm, I just shot a

1138
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:18,720
Speaker 2: baby Incorporated. Yeah yeah, named after the time I shot

1139
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:22,240
Speaker 2: a baby. Oh, it's great stuff.

1140
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 4: So.

1141
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:28,400
Speaker 2: Kushogi himself had fled Saudi Arabia in June of twenty seventeen,

1142
00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:30,360
Speaker 2: having seen the writing on the wall of the RITZ.

1143
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:33,480
Speaker 2: He had escalated his criticisms of the regime and NBS

1144
00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:35,920
Speaker 2: in particular and had launched a series of projects with

1145
00:58:35,960 --> 00:58:39,360
Speaker 2: the aim of collecting and amplifying foreign descent against the government.

1146
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:41,920
Speaker 2: Because he was too clever to fly back into the country,

1147
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 2: Saudi operatives had to nab him overseas in order to

1148
00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 2: stop his inconvenient criticisms. Saud Al Katani, NBS's triggerman, is

1149
00:58:49,280 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 2: known to have organized an effort to take the effort

1150
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:54,480
Speaker 2: to take out Kushogi. They finally caught him in Turkey.

1151
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 2: A fifteen member intervention group team fell upon the journalist

1152
00:58:57,960 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 2: as he visited the Saudi consulate and stenbull seeking papers

1153
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 2: to make his marriage to his fiance official. Well she

1154
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:07,240
Speaker 2: waited outside, the tam attacked him. The Kingdom would later

1155
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:09,080
Speaker 2: claim their job was just to take him back to

1156
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:12,320
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, but he resisted and so was injected with

1157
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:15,040
Speaker 2: a large dose of something that killed him. His body

1158
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 2: was then dismembered. NBS the government insisted had no knowledge

1159
00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:22,760
Speaker 2: of any of this. Subsequent investigations and reporting had revealed

1160
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 2: that one member of the negotiation team was a coroner

1161
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 2: explicitly hired to dismembered mister Koshogi's corpse after he was killed,

1162
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:32,800
Speaker 2: which would suggest they never wanted to take him alive, Right,

1163
00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 2: you don't bring a coroner along if you think you're

1164
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 2: going to get this guy out of the building alive.

1165
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,600
Speaker 3: Who among us was like, we just want to we

1166
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:42,960
Speaker 3: just want to talk to him. Oh damn it. We

1167
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 3: dismembered him.

1168
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:50,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, ah fuck yeah, yeah, yep, good god. So we

1169
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what went down in the room, but

1170
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:54,120
Speaker 2: we have a pretty good idea and all of the

1171
00:59:54,160 --> 00:59:57,720
Speaker 2: evidence shows mister Koshogi was assassinated, dismembered, and disposed of

1172
00:59:57,760 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 2: by a team that had been sent to Turkey to

1173
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:03,120
Speaker 2: do ja that all credible experts believe Mohammad and Salmon

1174
01:00:03,240 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 2: gave the orders. And that's kind of where we leave

1175
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 2: things off. There's more to say, I mean, there's a

1176
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:11,120
Speaker 2: lot more to get into the Trump years and stuff,

1177
01:00:11,120 --> 01:00:14,760
Speaker 2: but these are the broad strokes of how he came

1178
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:18,000
Speaker 2: to be where he is right Our current president has

1179
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 2: even broken with the conclusions of his own CIA to

1180
01:00:20,320 --> 01:00:23,440
Speaker 2: insist that NBS is probably innocent. And I don't know,

1181
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:26,040
Speaker 2: do we trust the CIA or do we trust Donald Trump?

1182
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:26,280
Speaker 6: Here?

1183
01:00:26,360 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, no, it's just a real like you've identified

1184
01:00:30,640 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 3: a bastard, but it really resonates of like the other

1185
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:36,320
Speaker 3: all the people who fucking are doing business with this

1186
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 3: guy and being like yeah, it's great there. It's just like, oh,

1187
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:41,480
Speaker 3: fuck all those people.

1188
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:46,840
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep, Because you know, the tempo of operations

1189
01:00:46,880 --> 01:00:48,880
Speaker 2: in Yemen with Saudi Arabia is a lot lower than

1190
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:52,600
Speaker 2: it was, but the damage from the peak of operations

1191
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 2: was catastrophic. Per an article and Genocide Watch, in twenty

1192
01:00:55,960 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 2: twenty one, Saudi strikes have directly killed over two twelve

1193
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:03,200
Speaker 2: thousand civilians. Only half of the hospitals continue to operate.

1194
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 2: Saudi naval blockades have cut off food and supplies. Thousands

1195
01:01:06,240 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 2: of children have died of starvation. A cholera epidemic afflicted

1196
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:12,480
Speaker 2: eight hundred thousand civilians and killed thousands. Eighty percent of

1197
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 2: the population depends on humanitarian relief. The Many Archive and

1198
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 2: Oxvan report that the Saudi led coalition has systematically destroyed

1199
01:01:18,960 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty bridges essential for delivery of humanitarian aid.

1200
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 2: Whothies have also prevented food aid from reaching populations and

1201
01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:28,200
Speaker 2: areas they control. At least two hundred and thirty three

1202
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 2: thousand civilians have died in yemen Civil war. Right so cool, horrific.

1203
01:01:35,560 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 3: Not good? Person. I will not be subscribing to The

1204
01:01:39,560 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 3: Wall City.

1205
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:44,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, no no, And I won't listen to his

1206
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:45,720
Speaker 2: podcast when it comes out.

1207
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:49,640
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was surprised because you talk about all these

1208
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 3: people who are just getting pale on money sitting around.

1209
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 3: I was like, surely a lot of podcasts, Yeah, a

1210
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 3: lot of terrible podcasts.

1211
01:01:57,800 --> 01:02:00,720
Speaker 2: Call it the Southcast. You know you got a right there.

1212
01:02:01,080 --> 01:02:02,320
Speaker 3: Bam, you did it.

1213
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:07,480
Speaker 2: M well, bam, gotta plug anything.

1214
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:14,440
Speaker 3: I don't know, okay, uh uh oh uh gamefully unemployed.

1215
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:19,320
Speaker 3: That's the podcast network I co run with Tom Ryman,

1216
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 3: and we talk about movies and TV and and and

1217
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 3: you know, stuff like that The X Files. I am

1218
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 3: the head writer of Some More News, which is a

1219
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 3: you know, it's like a news show on the YouTube. Uh.

1220
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 3: And that's it for now, maybe more in the future.

1221
01:02:39,200 --> 01:02:43,960
Speaker 3: Someday I will be able to say other things. That's it.

1222
01:02:44,080 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 2: Excellent? Cool, Well, everybody say other things with us and

1223
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:53,000
Speaker 2: to yourself and go away. The episode's done, Get out

1224
01:02:53,040 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 2: of here, m HM.

1225
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:01,160
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastard is a production Zone Media. For more

1226
01:03:01,200 --> 01:03:04,800
Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,

1227
01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1228
01:03:07,800 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes that

1229
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:14,080
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every

1230
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 1: Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me of Netflix. You don't

1231
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:20,280
Speaker 1: miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog,

1232
01:03:20,360 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 1: continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube dot com

1233
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:27,600
Speaker 1: slash at Behind the Bastards. We love about forty percent

1234
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:29,080
Speaker 1: of you, statistically speaking,