WEBVTT - Part Four: Prince Mohammed Bin Salman: The Tyrant of Saudi Arabia

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<v Speaker 1>Also media, and we're back.

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<v Speaker 2>Welcome back to the Behind the Bastards Mohammad Ben Solomon

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<v Speaker 2>Episodes Extravaganza. WHOA, Yeah, I don't know. I don't know

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<v Speaker 2>how to introduce these episodes in an exciting way anymore.

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<v Speaker 2>We're talking about bad people, the worst, and one of

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<v Speaker 2>them is the current Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. When

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<v Speaker 2>we left off last episode, he had started what was

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<v Speaker 2>becoming a genocide and Yemen. He had partied with Pittbull

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<v Speaker 2>and he was orchestrating the downfall of his relative, Mohammad Benaief,

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

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<v Speaker 2>David Bell our guests.

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<v Speaker 3>I'm doing well. I'm doing very well.

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<v Speaker 2>Is doing Bell?

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<v Speaker 4>Or?

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<v Speaker 3>I didn't have a new dream in between these episodes

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<v Speaker 3>that I could tell you about. That's probably it's just

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<v Speaker 3>the same dream from before.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that same upsetting dream.

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

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<v Speaker 2>It wasn't dream to me a little bit.

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<v Speaker 3>It wasn't sexual.

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>someone something isn't sexual works.

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<v Speaker 3>It was weird because, like, I don't dream about you

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<v Speaker 3>often than you did. I wasn't thinking about the fact

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

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<v Speaker 3>that's interesting that you made a came.

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<v Speaker 2>And now I am hurt. Why don't you dream about

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<v Speaker 2>me often?

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

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<v Speaker 3>doing when I go to bed. I'll look at a

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

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<v Speaker 3>weird about that.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, thank you, Dave. I will continue to have one

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<v Speaker 2>dream about you per week where we captain the USS

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<v Speaker 2>Enterprise together. Oh yeah, yeah, we would.

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<v Speaker 3>Do terrible things. We would.

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<v Speaker 2>We would that is not going to end well for

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<v Speaker 2>anyone on board the ship.

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<v Speaker 3>We would keep my go to every time I'd be

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<v Speaker 3>hit with like a moral dilemma or like a problem,

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<v Speaker 3>I just go beat them into space.

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<v Speaker 2>Moving on, Get those assholes into space right now?

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

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

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the one move.

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<v Speaker 2>I just watched The New Starfleet Academy, the first two episodes,

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<v Speaker 2>and it is missing that whenever these are there's all

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

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<v Speaker 2>your ship just being into space. Get his ass, beam

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<v Speaker 2>him into space.

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<v Speaker 3>Him into space? Yeah?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh god? You know who else was in the classic

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<v Speaker 2>movie Sideways? Dave who Prince Mohammed Ben Solomon?

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<v Speaker 3>Uh huh that chicks out?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he was the He was on one of the

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<v Speaker 2>two male leads in Sideways. Pretty much basically close enough.

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<v Speaker 2>Sure so, perhaps the key defining characteristic of Mohammed bin

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<v Speaker 2>Salmon the most explains his success within the closed world

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<v Speaker 2>of the Saudi royal family is simply the fact that

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<v Speaker 2>he's got energy and he wants to do things. I

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<v Speaker 2>cannot overemphasize how lazy most of these guys are.

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

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<v Speaker 3>well are they eighty? No, Okay, that's great.

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<v Speaker 2>It's it's like again if you go to like nepotism

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<v Speaker 2>with like the sons and daughters of like in Hollywood Royalty,

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<v Speaker 2>where when you get that one guy who's like he's

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<v Speaker 2>got the famous name and he's like no, no, no,

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<v Speaker 2>like I will cover my body and shit and roll around.

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<v Speaker 2>Does the role want me to be covered in shit

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<v Speaker 2>and squirming around like a grub.

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<v Speaker 3>I'll do it.

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<v Speaker 2>I don't give I have no ego about this. I

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

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<v Speaker 2>you're gonna have a career, Nicholas.

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<v Speaker 3>That was my Lily Rose death watching he knows Faratu

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<v Speaker 3>and I was like, oh, you're willing to like.

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

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<v Speaker 2>we can work with that. Yeah, yeah, you get to

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<v Speaker 2>be a star. Mohammed ben Salomon is is like the

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<v Speaker 2>Lily Rose dep of the Saudi royal family. You know,

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<v Speaker 2>a lot of people, a lot of people have been

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<v Speaker 2>saying that.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>So in twenty sixteen, he continues both the war and

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<v Speaker 2>Yemen and his conflict with Muhammad bin Nayef, and he

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<v Speaker 2>launches a new war against one of the most powerful

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<v Speaker 2>blocks in the kingdom, the religious police. Now the Mutawa

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<v Speaker 2>or haya as they are also called, had been seen

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<v Speaker 2>as almost untouchable by his predecessors. Right, these are the

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<v Speaker 2>police of ice and virtue. These are the guys we're

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

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<v Speaker 3>Right, fun police.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, these are they're literally the literal fun police, right,

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<v Speaker 2>and the men, and his father's generation and Mbian's generation

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<v Speaker 2>would not fuck with these guys, right, Like they were

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<v Speaker 2>scared of them. They really wanted them in their corner.

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<v Speaker 2>But by twenty sixteen things had started to change. More

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<v Speaker 2>than sixty five percent of Saudis were under thirty, and

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<v Speaker 2>the young men of this generation had grown up with

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<v Speaker 2>access to the Internet and social media. They and their

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<v Speaker 2>peers shared their frustration with the abuses of the religious police. Right.

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<v Speaker 2>They were talking to each other about how annoying these

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<v Speaker 2>fuckers were, right right.

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<v Speaker 3>They're on the internet. They're like, hey, everybody else is

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<v Speaker 3>having fun. Yeah, Like we're learning about fun police.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the man who would be king Karen House

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

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<v Speaker 2>often self appointed members of the Committee to Promote Virtue

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<v Speaker 2>and Prevent Vice, had roamed Saudi streets carrying a long stick,

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<v Speaker 2>forcing women to cover their heads, hurting Saudis into the

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<v Speaker 2>mosket prayer time and sharing all shops and stores locked

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<v Speaker 2>their door for half an hour at prayer time. And

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<v Speaker 2>that Western influence like Barbie dolls or Pokemon cards didn't

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

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<v Speaker 2>after Pokemon card.

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

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<v Speaker 3>But if you if you start a cult, right, one

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<v Speaker 3>of the key things you gotta do to maintain that

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<v Speaker 3>it makes your people are having fun, right.

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<v Speaker 2>There gotta be something, right, Yeah, you just.

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<v Speaker 3>Can't like if you're like, no Pokemon cards, it's like,

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<v Speaker 3>this is not going to last.

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<v Speaker 2>If you're saying no Pokemon cards, but you can all

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<v Speaker 2>wife swap, then you might be able to keep a

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<v Speaker 2>cult going. But if you're saying no swipe wipe swapping

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<v Speaker 2>and no Pokemon cards, what's gonna keep people there?

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Right, you're out of business.

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<v Speaker 2>You're out of business. You gotta you gott at least

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<v Speaker 2>to get them on drugs or something, you know.

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<v Speaker 3>Goddamn Pokemon cards. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>To continue from that quote, in the waning years of

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<v Speaker 2>the late King Abdullah's rule, the Hya had gotten completely

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

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<v Speaker 2>religious police chased the car until it rolled off an overpass,

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<v Speaker 2>killing the driver and injuring his wife and two young children.

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

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<v Speaker 2>suspecting alcohol, chase the young men's car bumping it at

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<v Speaker 2>high speed, causing the car to roll off a bridge.

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<v Speaker 2>The religious police fled the scene still. Six members of

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<v Speaker 2>the Hia were later acquitted off all charges. Saudi's tweeted

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<v Speaker 2>their anger or on social media the higher are bloodthirsty.

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<v Speaker 2>At Tallal tweeted. At Nahar wrote the highest situation is

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<v Speaker 2>similar to many governmental entities in Saudi. They all need

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<v Speaker 2>restructuring and fixing. So these guys are just a menace

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<v Speaker 2>right where it's like they might be drunk, ram them

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<v Speaker 2>off the road, you know, like they're cops. All cops

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<v Speaker 2>are kind of more alike than different, right, It's a

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<v Speaker 2>happy family situation.

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

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<v Speaker 3>becoming food. It was just this thing right where you're

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

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<v Speaker 3>cop of any kind, people stop becoming people. Just what happens,

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<v Speaker 3>which is why I don't know. People should only be

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<v Speaker 3>cops for like a few weeks at a time and

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<v Speaker 3>then we swap it out.

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<v Speaker 2>If you're gonna have cops, it should be a job

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<v Speaker 2>where everyone is a cop for a little while and

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<v Speaker 2>let me because you know what doesn't get enforced them

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<v Speaker 2>is bullshit rules, right if everyone has to take them,

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<v Speaker 2>and you're like, wait, I gotta got to enforce Merrijuana

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<v Speaker 2>loss No that yeah, yeah, anything is better than having

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<v Speaker 2>it just be like a job that a group of

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<v Speaker 2>people hold and to protect their power, need to like

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<v Speaker 2>protect their right to continue doing it with even greater

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<v Speaker 2>bloodthirstiness and anything.

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<v Speaker 3>Just make cats cops, just just replace all cops cops.

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<v Speaker 2>Especially Every cat has a drone with a gun on it,

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<v Speaker 2>so when the cat needs to shoot somebody, the drone

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<v Speaker 2>just starts firing, like whenever the cat gets angry, it

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<v Speaker 2>just starts blasting. Get down, Get down the cat's angry

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<v Speaker 2>food bowl.

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

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<v Speaker 2>Than what we have. Right if protesters, right now, we're

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<v Speaker 2>instead of trying to fight squadrons of like armored police

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<v Speaker 2>with tanks and machine guns, there were just a bunch

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<v Speaker 2>of cats with robots firing blindly into the air because

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<v Speaker 2>they hadn't been let out and long enough at least

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<v Speaker 2>easier problem tosault, mister.

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<v Speaker 3>President, How did they get in here? How did they

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

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<v Speaker 3>over we can do. Yeah, there's nothing.

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<v Speaker 2>So NBS's first move in his war against the religious

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<v Speaker 2>police was to ban them from stopping or detaining Saudi

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<v Speaker 2>citizens in public. Great, first start, right, the thing that

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<v Speaker 2>you were doing that was getting a lot of people killed,

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<v Speaker 2>you just can't do anymore. So you're not allowed to

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<v Speaker 2>just fuck with people in the world. His predecessors had

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<v Speaker 2>tried to curb the influence of religious hardliners, but failed,

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<v Speaker 2>most famously blocking for six years an attempt by King

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<v Speaker 2>Abdullah to make it legal for women to work in

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<v Speaker 2>lingerie stores selling underwear to other women, and like the

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

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<v Speaker 2>But then the problem is like, okay, so are men

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<v Speaker 2>supposed to sell lingerie?

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<v Speaker 3>So we have launch better, but women can't work in

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<v Speaker 3>the low like yeah, you know. The luger industry was like, guys.

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<v Speaker 2>Please, come on, you gotta give us something like what

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<v Speaker 2>got We just want to sell you people underwear?

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<v Speaker 3>But is wrong here? It's in here?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Where King Abdullah had been too frightened to confront

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<v Speaker 2>the Mattawa directly, Mohammed ben Salomon simply ignored their protestations

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<v Speaker 2>and used his father's absolute power to crush any opposition.

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<v Speaker 2>The public was wildly supportive of his actions, and conservatives

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<v Speaker 2>found themselves alone. Perhaps MBS's single most important quality was

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<v Speaker 2>his ability to understand how the youth of Saudi Arabia felt.

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<v Speaker 2>It wasn't just the morality police. Regular citizens knew it

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<v Speaker 2>was impossible to get anything done through the government without bribery.

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<v Speaker 2>The poor majority of the country were forced to watch

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<v Speaker 2>while a handful of princes siphoned away the oil money

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<v Speaker 2>that was supposed to be funding social programs and infrastructure.

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<v Speaker 2>Right Like, people are pissed about this, and so NBS

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<v Speaker 2>has a lot of support as he sets about dismanding

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<v Speaker 2>his enemies the forces he saw is holding Saudi Arabia

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<v Speaker 2>and his own ambition back. He later said this of

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<v Speaker 2>his decision to crack down or on the religious police.

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<v Speaker 2>I am young. I don't want seventy percent of the

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<v Speaker 2>Saudi population to waste their lives trying to get rid

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<v Speaker 2>of this. We want to do it now, right, and

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<v Speaker 2>this is we're going from like the genocide and the

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>These guys suck.

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<v Speaker 3>To break situation.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the only thing that we'll get rid of them

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<v Speaker 2>is a strong He's effectively the king, not literally, but

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<v Speaker 2>is a strong regent who's being the fuck it. That's

0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.120
<v Speaker 2>not how we do things anymore. I'm in chart right,

0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.840
<v Speaker 2>Like nothing else was going to fix the situation because

0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.280
<v Speaker 2>of how Saudi Arabia works. Right, I'm not saying every

0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.440
<v Speaker 2>country is this way. We don't need a king to

0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:52.280
<v Speaker 2>deal with the cops in our country. We could just

0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:54.880
<v Speaker 2>stop having them be immune to everything. But whatever.

0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.079
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's like when Trump gets something right, it's like

0:11:58.120 --> 0:11:59.760
<v Speaker 3>you don't have to hand it to him, you know.

0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.480
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, it's like, yeah, he is right. Those those

0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.679
<v Speaker 2>little Japanese trucks are pretty sweet. We should be able

0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.920
<v Speaker 2>to buy us here. Yeah, yeah, we don't need just

0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.600
<v Speaker 2>f three fifties. We could use some little k's or whatever,

0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:12.439
<v Speaker 2>or the Korean I forget which those little bitty trucks.

0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.800
<v Speaker 2>We should. We need little bitty trucks here. He's right,

0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:15.240
<v Speaker 2>you need that.

0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we need little bitty trucks.

0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.559
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's every anytime it's something truck related. He's got

0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.439
<v Speaker 2>like a fifty percent chance of being right because he

0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.040
<v Speaker 2>seems to just be a guy who periodically sees trucks

0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:26.880
<v Speaker 2>and goes, ooh those two.

0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:28.880
<v Speaker 3>The guy seems to know trucks.

0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I trust think he just likes them.

0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.080
<v Speaker 3>If he was like Secretary of Trucks, I'd be fine

0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:35.680
<v Speaker 3>with that, you know.

0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, It's like that video where he's inside that big

0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.000
<v Speaker 2>dump truck or whatever pretending to drive around, and I'm like, no,

0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.840
<v Speaker 2>that looked pretty fun. I'd be making the little faces too,

0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:45.040
<v Speaker 2>Like who would do that?

0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.040
<v Speaker 3>Most human moment for him?

0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, the no.

0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.959
<v Speaker 3>Just getting rid of the fun police. Anybody could have

0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:54.560
<v Speaker 3>done it.

0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.280
<v Speaker 2>But anybody and everyone should have before him. It's shocking that,

0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.360
<v Speaker 2>but like, he's the guy who does it right. By

0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.760
<v Speaker 2>the end of twenty seventeen, he had developed a somewhat

0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.040
<v Speaker 2>earned reputation as a reformer, but he was also the

0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.000
<v Speaker 2>architect of what the international community was openly calling a

0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.080
<v Speaker 2>humanitarian catastrophe and potentially an act of genocide. A twenty

0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.840
<v Speaker 2>twenty one report by Watana for Human Rights, an independent

0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:21.560
<v Speaker 2>Yeomeni human rights organization, concluded that by November of two

0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.360
<v Speaker 2>thousand and fifteen, the Kingdom was aware of a food

0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.280
<v Speaker 2>and security crisis in the regions they were striking. Over

0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.520
<v Speaker 2>the next two years, NBS's Saudi led coalition increasingly and

0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.200
<v Speaker 2>purposefully used hunger as a weapon to try and force

0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.600
<v Speaker 2>hoothy surrender. Martha Mundy, an expert on Yemen, quotes a

0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.800
<v Speaker 2>senior Saudi diplomat who described the coalition strategy this way.

0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.880
<v Speaker 2>Once we control them, we will feed them.

0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:50.360
<v Speaker 3>Huh hah. Is that the plan? Yeah? Okay, that's a

0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:51.480
<v Speaker 3>good plant.

0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.000
<v Speaker 2>You know you're the sistic cries right, like, first off,

0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:56.080
<v Speaker 2>that's bad guy talk.

0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:58.680
<v Speaker 3>I want to conte super villain.

0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.200
<v Speaker 2>Yes, continue by quoting from a twenty twenty five article

0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:06.160
<v Speaker 2>in the Journal for Genocide Research unnoticing Yemen. A UN

0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.040
<v Speaker 2>panel of experts similarly determined and a report published in

0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.800
<v Speaker 2>January twenty eighteen that the Saudi blockade is essentially using

0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.240
<v Speaker 2>the threat of starvation as a bargaining tool and an

0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.680
<v Speaker 2>instrument of war. The Yemen Data Project, a major source

0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.760
<v Speaker 2>of information about Yemen, has documented the persistence of the

0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.560
<v Speaker 2>tendency of the Saudi coalition to target civilian places and infrastructure.

0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.400
<v Speaker 2>Almost a third of all coalition air strikes throughout the

0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.120
<v Speaker 2>war have been aimed at such targets, especially at farms.

0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.400
<v Speaker 2>Right so they are. Food is a weapon.

0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:34.760
<v Speaker 3>You know.

0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.120
<v Speaker 2>That's a lot of people in a fund way, but

0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:38.880
<v Speaker 2>not in a fun way, not in a fun way,

0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.400
<v Speaker 2>not like on a food fight way. Yes, Dave. Despite

0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.080
<v Speaker 2>each new atrocity, there appeared to be no end in sight.

0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.640
<v Speaker 2>King Solomon had taken power and brought his son with him,

0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.600
<v Speaker 2>but they'd inherited an utter mess of an economy. Oil

0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.240
<v Speaker 2>revenue accounted for eighty percent of the federal budget, but

0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.320
<v Speaker 2>global oil prices had collapsed, leading to a fifty percent

0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.400
<v Speaker 2>decline in revenue. One of King Solomon's first moves was

0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.200
<v Speaker 2>to bring in the kingdom's foreign currency reserves. With one

0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.040
<v Speaker 2>hundred billion dollar budget deficit and the warring Yeomen alone

0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.640
<v Speaker 2>costing half a billion dollars a month, the World Bank

0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.320
<v Speaker 2>estimated Saudi Arabia could only afford to go on for

0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:12.920
<v Speaker 2>four years before running out of money. There was no

0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.080
<v Speaker 2>way to begin tackling the problem without cutting benefits to

0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.160
<v Speaker 2>Saudi citizens, much of this in the form of benefits

0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.120
<v Speaker 2>to government employees. These cuts slashed the average Saudi man's

0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:27.320
<v Speaker 2>income by around fifty percent. That's how to the boned.

0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.920
<v Speaker 2>Because these people, all their jobs are fake, and all

0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.080
<v Speaker 2>their jobs are like, oh, you know, to use a typewriter.

0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.560
<v Speaker 2>There's an extra twenty percent to your salary, right, that's

0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:36.360
<v Speaker 2>the stuff he's getting.

0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.760
<v Speaker 3>Hey, we talked about that where it's like, sorry, guys,

0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.360
<v Speaker 3>nothing you do matter. So you're kind of you know.

0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.280
<v Speaker 2>And the country's fallen apart now because of the war.

0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:47.200
<v Speaker 2>The Prince launch.

0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.360
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, we want to do this war. So we're going

0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:51.880
<v Speaker 3>to pay you less to do nothing. No, what's a

0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:52.640
<v Speaker 3>hero in this?

0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:53.760
<v Speaker 2>I guess when's a hero?

0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:58.120
<v Speaker 3>But also I would be pissed. I'm like, listen, you

0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.760
<v Speaker 3>promised me money to do nothing for a very long time.

0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:02.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you promised me money for nothing. In the Chicks

0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:04.400
<v Speaker 2>for free, man, I don't have exact.

0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.920
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, maybe I'm spoiled, but I don't want less money

0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:09.040
<v Speaker 3>so you can go to a war.

0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the chicks still aren't free, you know.

0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:13.920
<v Speaker 3>No, No, we're.

0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.360
<v Speaker 2>Not even allowed to play guitar. Well, actually now we are.

0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:17.400
<v Speaker 2>We are allowed to play the guitar.

0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:18.440
<v Speaker 3>Now, that's sobbing.

0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.080
<v Speaker 2>It's something right, and the man who would be King

0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.800
<v Speaker 2>Karen House rights. Despite warnings from some of his ministers

0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.520
<v Speaker 2>that economic growth would grind to a halt, MBS preceded

0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.240
<v Speaker 2>to add insult to injury. The Saudi Civil Service Minister

0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.240
<v Speaker 2>took to television to accuse government employees of working only

0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.960
<v Speaker 2>an hour a day. These cuts were paired with slashes

0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.400
<v Speaker 2>to subsidized water power and gasoline. Fuel prizes rose by

0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.200
<v Speaker 2>fifty percent, bringing gas up to a horrifying ninety six

0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.080
<v Speaker 2>cents per gallon. When Saudi economists described the situation thuslye

0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.600
<v Speaker 2>we had Christmas every day and Gridge has stolen it.

0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:50.440
<v Speaker 3>First, it's a hero.

0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.360
<v Speaker 2>Now it's a hero. Like shit, man, Like, should you

0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.360
<v Speaker 2>have had Christmas every day? Is that a good way

0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:57.280
<v Speaker 2>to run a country?

0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:57.720
<v Speaker 4>Well?

0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.440
<v Speaker 3>So, I like, I'm all for living in a utopian

0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:03.680
<v Speaker 3>society where it's Christmas every day.

0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.520
<v Speaker 2>But not when it's being paid for by oil money.

0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.480
<v Speaker 2>It's only Christmas for a tiny chunk of the population.

0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.280
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, where it's just this group at the cost of

0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.760
<v Speaker 3>everybody else. That's not good. But I understand that it's

0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.359
<v Speaker 3>It's that sort of thing where everybody thinks of the

0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.480
<v Speaker 3>underdog of their own life. It doesn't matter how rich

0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:23.560
<v Speaker 3>you are, you want more and you feel like you're

0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.320
<v Speaker 3>not getting enough. So it's like these people clearly were

0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:31.080
<v Speaker 3>living in their little utopia and then they're like, sorry,

0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.120
<v Speaker 3>life has to get slightly realer for you, and they're.

0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:40.119
<v Speaker 2>Like, this is bullshit, bullshit, you want me to do stuff? Yeah. No.

0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.280
<v Speaker 2>So government spending was a huge problem, as was the

0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.520
<v Speaker 2>fact that basically no citizens were working, but just annihilating

0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.600
<v Speaker 2>everyone's income turned out to have negative impacts. By the

0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.960
<v Speaker 2>start of twenty seventeen, economic growth was at point four percent,

0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.440
<v Speaker 2>a state of affairs most economists would describe as fucked up.

0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.560
<v Speaker 2>Social media boiled with resentment, A protest movement began to

0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.200
<v Speaker 2>bubble up up and on April twenty second of twenty seventeen,

0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.400
<v Speaker 2>King Solomon was forced to issue a royal decree declaring

0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:09.240
<v Speaker 2>takes these backsies on all cuts and allowances, benefits and bonuses.

0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.240
<v Speaker 2>The Civil Services Minister was fired for insulting Saudi workers,

0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.719
<v Speaker 2>and again he's right, these guys are at most, in

0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:18.480
<v Speaker 2>a lot of cases do it an hour a day

0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:18.880
<v Speaker 2>of work.

0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:19.399
<v Speaker 4>You know.

0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.320
<v Speaker 3>It's interesting because it's there's certain things in this that

0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.680
<v Speaker 3>I admire and then certain things where I'm like, again,

0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.200
<v Speaker 3>like okay, like I would love to not work much

0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.640
<v Speaker 3>and get paid, but I always great, Like it's definitely

0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.840
<v Speaker 3>a sign that things are going bad. I do wish

0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:40.440
<v Speaker 3>more governments issued takes these backsies like policy. Yeah, yeah,

0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.600
<v Speaker 3>we're allowed to go. Hey, everybody, oops.

0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.760
<v Speaker 2>You know what the Department of Homeland Security was mistake, Yeah,

0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.640
<v Speaker 2>taking away the TSA. Just get on planes now, we'll

0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.560
<v Speaker 2>figure it out, you know. Yeah, it works like the

0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.760
<v Speaker 2>nineties again, just run right up to the plane, right.

0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.960
<v Speaker 3>But because that's not normalized, them doing that in this

0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.480
<v Speaker 3>case is like, oh, you really fucked up. Hunh.

0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, you made a mistake. You realized that you

0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:06.960
<v Speaker 2>were about to be overthrown.

0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:08.600
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.720
<v Speaker 2>NBS was not fired after this fuck up, but his

0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.320
<v Speaker 2>popularity and reputation took a major hit. Perhaps one reason

0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.639
<v Speaker 2>why it was so hard for Saudi citizens to accept

0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:19.760
<v Speaker 2>any cuts to their benefits was that they'd seen the

0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.399
<v Speaker 2>al Saud family's personal finances balloon during the same period,

0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:24.960
<v Speaker 2>and they have a point where it's like, yeah, you

0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.280
<v Speaker 2>guys aren't really working a lot of you where you're

0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.280
<v Speaker 2>doing barely a job compared to what you're getting paid for.

0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.639
<v Speaker 2>But the al Soud family is worth an insane amount

0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.920
<v Speaker 2>of money and they do nothing at all. Right, even

0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.560
<v Speaker 2>as the government revenues have collapsed, they continue to be

0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.040
<v Speaker 2>the family net worth as this as the states' finances

0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.560
<v Speaker 2>are in free fall. The Soud family net worth is

0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.760
<v Speaker 2>one point four trillion dollars. So I get why these

0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:51.880
<v Speaker 2>people are like, we gotta make cuts.

0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:57.400
<v Speaker 3>Are you kidding me? Yeah? The story of everything right

0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.000
<v Speaker 3>where it's like the rich people like, sorry, you're gonna

0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.520
<v Speaker 3>have to tighten the belt. Yeah, I mean I need,

0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.240
<v Speaker 3>I need my super yacht. Yeah.

0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.200
<v Speaker 2>Look, man, if I don't like I can only eat

0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:10.480
<v Speaker 2>one piece of steak per cow and we've got to

0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.840
<v Speaker 2>burn the rest of the cow. And oh yeah, no

0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.800
<v Speaker 2>one else got light on the same private jet twice.

0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.240
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm being a cow share. Yeah.

0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.480
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely. Now I will say one point four trillion dollars

0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:24.720
<v Speaker 2>is the networth of the family that is spread. There's

0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.040
<v Speaker 2>tend like more than ten thousand descendants. Now it's not

0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.040
<v Speaker 2>evenly split up, right, right, but it is split up

0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:33.159
<v Speaker 2>between them, you know, so it's not quite as insane,

0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:34.120
<v Speaker 2>but it's still a lot.

0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.520
<v Speaker 3>You know, things Things are tense, right, It's like.

0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:38.640
<v Speaker 2>Things are tense by mid twenty seventeen.

0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.320
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, because they basically it's like, I don't know,

0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:44.280
<v Speaker 3>it feels like the same vibes of if we were

0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.480
<v Speaker 3>on a lifeboat and I was like, sorry, I'm gonna

0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.439
<v Speaker 3>shoot you because I want all the food. Also I

0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.639
<v Speaker 3>don't like you. And then you realize there's no bullets

0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:53.080
<v Speaker 3>and you're like, sorry, never mind.

0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.439
<v Speaker 2>You know what that test just to test, Yeah, just

0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.680
<v Speaker 2>testing you guys, see if you ever ready to share

0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:01.119
<v Speaker 2>with me and running this boat.

0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.080
<v Speaker 3>They're not wrong, but it sounds like he along with

0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.480
<v Speaker 3>being like, we're cutting your money, but also by being

0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:08.919
<v Speaker 3>like and you deserve to have your money cut like

0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.520
<v Speaker 3>it's yeah, like you're not doing anything, So.

0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:14.679
<v Speaker 2>That's right, that's right, you're not doing anything. But you

0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:15.680
<v Speaker 2>know who is doing something?

0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.000
<v Speaker 3>No, sorry, I don't know.

0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.239
<v Speaker 2>Sponsors of this podcast. They're doing hard work. You know,

0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.640
<v Speaker 2>they're earning their pay. If you let them run Saudi Arabia,

0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:31.280
<v Speaker 2>they'll they'll do it. You know they'll run it Saudi Arabia.

0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:32.560
<v Speaker 3>They'll definitely do it.

0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:43.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and we're back. I've run it too, by the way,

0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.480
<v Speaker 2>times do you run it too?

0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:45.680
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?

0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.400
<v Speaker 2>I bet you could run, Dave. Yeah, what's your first move?

0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:50.639
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if I can do it. I'm just

0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.480
<v Speaker 3>saying I will do it. If someone was like, do

0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:56.920
<v Speaker 3>you want to do this, I do it?

0:21:57.640 --> 0:21:58.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:00.880
<v Speaker 3>For at least a week, and then you'd never hear

0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.800
<v Speaker 3>from me again. Yeah, I would be dead. It's it's

0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:06.280
<v Speaker 3>you know, but I'll do it.

0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:10.119
<v Speaker 2>My first move. I'm changing the country's name to what

0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.800
<v Speaker 2>from Saudi Arabia to Free Ecstasy Town. You know, we

0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.440
<v Speaker 2>just let the tourist dollars flood in. We let those

0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:20.760
<v Speaker 2>Germans and Spaniards come on over. You know, someone will

0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:23.520
<v Speaker 2>provide the ecstasy. That's not my job. They're in Free

0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.280
<v Speaker 2>Ecstasy Town right now, zero downsides.

0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.960
<v Speaker 3>That's so smart. What if? Okay, hold on, what if

0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.840
<v Speaker 3>like I named my apartment that like and put it

0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.639
<v Speaker 3>on like got it, got it on like Google maps.

0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.159
<v Speaker 3>It's like free Ecstasy Town. Because you're right, is that

0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.560
<v Speaker 3>if you do that and then people show up, eventually.

0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.600
<v Speaker 2>There will be a free ecstasy exactly.

0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:46.280
<v Speaker 3>It's a problem that I'm gonna.

0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:48.080
<v Speaker 2>Come back in like two weeks and start the episode.

0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.880
<v Speaker 2>So our friend David Bell has been raided by the Dea.

0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:53.960
<v Speaker 2>He flew too close to the sun.

0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:56.720
<v Speaker 3>That's just so smart. I don't know, that's such a

0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:57.399
<v Speaker 3>smart idea.

0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:01.480
<v Speaker 2>I think it'll work. I think it'll work anyway. Ads

0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.760
<v Speaker 2>and we oh we did? Are we back from ads?

0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:07.960
<v Speaker 2>Were I thought, what's wrong with me? What's wrong?

0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:08.680
<v Speaker 3>Much ecstasy.

0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.679
<v Speaker 2>By mid twenty seventeen, the King's son was in a

0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:15.000
<v Speaker 2>very mixed position Politically. He'd earned accolades as a reformer

0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:17.280
<v Speaker 2>for his hobbling of the religious police and his seeming

0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:20.480
<v Speaker 2>support for some social liberalization, but he was also the

0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:23.879
<v Speaker 2>author of an unpopular austerity policy. The king and his

0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:26.879
<v Speaker 2>son faced increasing resistance, both from the populace and within

0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.879
<v Speaker 2>their own family. Mbin, who'd made no secret of his

0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:34.280
<v Speaker 2>critiques of MBS's policies, was an obvious rallying point for resistance,

0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.560
<v Speaker 2>and so on June twenty first, twenty seventeen, Mohammed bin

0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:41.560
<v Speaker 2>Salman acted to take him down. Karen House writes that

0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:44.600
<v Speaker 2>fateful evening of June twenty first, twenty seventeen, Mbien was

0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.359
<v Speaker 2>called to a palace in Mecca. Once there, his guards

0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:50.480
<v Speaker 2>were forbidden to accompany him. Inside, all phones were surrendered

0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:53.080
<v Speaker 2>to palace guards. Mbian was taken to a room where

0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.280
<v Speaker 2>Turkey Alashik, a contemporary and friend of MBS and now

0:23:56.320 --> 0:24:00.000
<v Speaker 2>Minister of the General Entertainment Authority, and others began bullying

0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.960
<v Speaker 2>him to resign. Denied contact with his men and the

0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:04.800
<v Speaker 2>painkillers to which he was said to be addicted. He

0:24:04.840 --> 0:24:08.240
<v Speaker 2>finally succumbed early the next morning after Prince Khalid al Faisal,

0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:10.640
<v Speaker 2>the governor of Mecca, urged him to obey the king.

0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.640
<v Speaker 2>Huh so that's how he gets rid of his cousin. Yeah, wow,

0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:25.480
<v Speaker 2>that was abrupt. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was super abrupt. Yeah.

0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.080
<v Speaker 2>And by the way, that fella Turkey ala Shikh who

0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:32.000
<v Speaker 2>was handling like the torturing of Mohammed Bineef, like cutting

0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:34.359
<v Speaker 2>him off from his guards and his painkillers and like

0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:37.080
<v Speaker 2>forcing him to resign. The guy who handles all that.

0:24:37.440 --> 0:24:39.520
<v Speaker 2>Do you know what? He got more? And he's become

0:24:39.520 --> 0:24:40.679
<v Speaker 2>famous for doing more recently.

0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:42.200
<v Speaker 3>Oh no, a hint.

0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:44.440
<v Speaker 2>He's the Minister of the General Entertainment Authority.

0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:46.880
<v Speaker 3>What did he do?

0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:49.359
<v Speaker 2>He's the guy who ran the Riad Comedy Festival that

0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:59.159
<v Speaker 2>all our favorite comedians. Yeah baby, yeah, yeah, he's not

0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:01.359
<v Speaker 2>only in charge of it entertainment than the kingdom. He's

0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:04.120
<v Speaker 2>been Salmon's hatchet man. Yes, yeah, he has a whole

0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:06.840
<v Speaker 2>prison named after him. Yes, the guy who paid Dave

0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:08.600
<v Speaker 2>Chappelle six million dollars.

0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:14.359
<v Speaker 3>I mean not surprised. I guess I don't know. Nah, did.

0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:16.480
<v Speaker 3>Who else was there? It was Louis k At that.

0:25:17.119 --> 0:25:18.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think he was, Yeah, pretty sure he was.

0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:23.119
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's the Simpsons moment with the burlesque house and

0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:27.040
<v Speaker 3>Barney comes out and they're like, oh, Barney, it's that

0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:30.480
<v Speaker 3>where like Louis k At there. I'm like, yeah, yeah,

0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:31.520
<v Speaker 3>no one was shocked.

0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:34.520
<v Speaker 2>I guess yeah, it's I don't feel any worse about

0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:37.000
<v Speaker 2>Louis c k or about Dave Chappelle that I did

0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:41.080
<v Speaker 2>previously about like, yeah, yeah, I bet they. If you

0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:43.639
<v Speaker 2>told me some comedians took millions of dollars from the

0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:47.160
<v Speaker 2>Saudi royal family, those would have been my two first guesses, right,

0:25:47.440 --> 0:25:48.120
<v Speaker 2>not shocked.

0:25:48.560 --> 0:25:50.960
<v Speaker 3>I wouldn't be surprised by a lot of comedians, frankly,

0:25:51.000 --> 0:25:54.320
<v Speaker 3>because no, you're a comedian. I don't know. It's the

0:25:54.359 --> 0:25:56.680
<v Speaker 3>same with Pitt Bull at that thing where I'm just like,

0:25:57.000 --> 0:26:00.280
<v Speaker 3>I don't like it, but I'm I guess I'm not surprised.

0:26:01.160 --> 0:26:03.400
<v Speaker 2>I'm a little surprised by the well because I think

0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:06.159
<v Speaker 2>most people, if you say, like you want to make

0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:08.600
<v Speaker 2>six million dollars for a day's work, you have to

0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:11.159
<v Speaker 2>make peace with working for a really bad man. But

0:26:11.200 --> 0:26:14.200
<v Speaker 2>all you have to do is something otherwise innocuous, most

0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:17.080
<v Speaker 2>people will do it, which isn't good. It's just six

0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:19.560
<v Speaker 2>million dollars. But if you have a lot of six

0:26:19.600 --> 0:26:22.800
<v Speaker 2>millions of dollars, that's to say, that's where it's like,

0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:25.880
<v Speaker 2>what like you're not starving, you don't have to pay

0:26:25.880 --> 0:26:27.720
<v Speaker 2>for your your mom's dialysis.

0:26:27.920 --> 0:26:31.879
<v Speaker 3>Damn well. And that's the if most people was like

0:26:32.040 --> 0:26:34.439
<v Speaker 3>I did it, I wouldn't be like, I'm disappointed in you.

0:26:34.600 --> 0:26:36.800
<v Speaker 2>I'd say so, yeah, I mean you still had student loans.

0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:37.920
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, I get it.

0:26:38.320 --> 0:26:42.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, can I have some? I guess yeah. But yeah,

0:26:42.119 --> 0:26:46.359
<v Speaker 3>when it's an already rich person, it's just like people

0:26:46.440 --> 0:26:49.639
<v Speaker 3>didn't need that. Yeah, but that's rich people.

0:26:49.960 --> 0:26:52.080
<v Speaker 2>That's rich people. That's how you get that rich. So

0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:54.760
<v Speaker 2>to the international public, it seemed as if the air

0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:57.400
<v Speaker 2>apparent and most powerful man in the Saudi security state

0:26:57.440 --> 0:27:00.399
<v Speaker 2>had completely collapsed overnight as a center of power. Now,

0:27:00.680 --> 0:27:04.000
<v Speaker 2>as we've covered, Muhammad bin Niev's position had been degrading

0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:07.600
<v Speaker 2>for years. Right, he was not totally well, He did

0:27:07.600 --> 0:27:10.160
<v Speaker 2>not have a grip on things, and MBS had been

0:27:10.520 --> 0:27:13.520
<v Speaker 2>slowly cutting him off from his sources of power for

0:27:13.880 --> 0:27:17.080
<v Speaker 2>several years. At this point. So this is the result

0:27:17.119 --> 0:27:20.080
<v Speaker 2>of a fairly long family conflict. For most of the

0:27:20.080 --> 0:27:22.919
<v Speaker 2>twenty first century, Saudi Arabia had been ruled not just

0:27:23.000 --> 0:27:25.359
<v Speaker 2>by the king, but by the Black Prince and another

0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.040
<v Speaker 2>senior prince, a guy named Sultan who headed the defense

0:27:28.119 --> 0:27:31.800
<v Speaker 2>ministry before MBS. All three of these men died between

0:27:31.880 --> 0:27:35.480
<v Speaker 2>twenty twelve and twenty sixteen. So now a year, just

0:27:35.560 --> 0:27:39.000
<v Speaker 2>like two years into King Solomon's being the king, right

0:27:39.040 --> 0:27:42.119
<v Speaker 2>in twenty seventeen, he and his father have neutered the

0:27:42.160 --> 0:27:46.120
<v Speaker 2>clerics and the religious police. They've eliminated Crown Prince Naief

0:27:46.160 --> 0:27:48.320
<v Speaker 2>and the other crown princes who might have acted as

0:27:48.320 --> 0:27:50.800
<v Speaker 2>barriers to their total power were gone. They are the

0:27:50.840 --> 0:27:54.600
<v Speaker 2>ones running everything. There are no other major power centers.

0:27:54.600 --> 0:27:57.200
<v Speaker 2>They've done this in about two years, right, so this

0:27:57.240 --> 0:27:59.719
<v Speaker 2>is a very successful consolidation of power.

0:28:00.160 --> 0:28:02.000
<v Speaker 3>Have some game of throne and shit like.

0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:06.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah it really is. Yeah. Now, all they had to

0:28:06.119 --> 0:28:09.720
<v Speaker 2>do was discipline a squabbling cadre of lesser princes and officials,

0:28:09.760 --> 0:28:12.600
<v Speaker 2>some of whom had supported rival princes and others who

0:28:12.680 --> 0:28:16.120
<v Speaker 2>of whom may have eventually represented a threat themselves. More

0:28:16.160 --> 0:28:18.359
<v Speaker 2>to the point, they were all corrupt and King and

0:28:18.440 --> 0:28:21.080
<v Speaker 2>Prince Salomon both knew their continued support would hing on

0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:24.880
<v Speaker 2>being seen as fighting corruption. In the fall of twenty seventeen,

0:28:24.960 --> 0:28:28.000
<v Speaker 2>Mohammed bin Salmon spoke before a major investment conference in

0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:30.920
<v Speaker 2>Riyad that had earned a reputation for being the Davos

0:28:30.960 --> 0:28:33.840
<v Speaker 2>of the Desert. In a bid to attract foreign investment

0:28:33.880 --> 0:28:36.600
<v Speaker 2>into the kingdom, he deliberately played down the country's connection

0:28:36.640 --> 0:28:39.840
<v Speaker 2>to Wahabism and announced that by June of twenty eighteen,

0:28:40.280 --> 0:28:44.680
<v Speaker 2>Saudi Arabia would finally allow women to drive. Hey, what

0:28:44.840 --> 0:28:50.240
<v Speaker 2>a reformer, huge move, what a feminist icon, Mohammad been Salomon.

0:28:51.600 --> 0:28:55.000
<v Speaker 3>It really is like if you have a society where, like,

0:28:55.160 --> 0:28:57.920
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, people are running around stabbing other people

0:28:58.040 --> 0:28:59.040
<v Speaker 3>randomly all the time.

0:28:59.080 --> 0:29:02.360
<v Speaker 5>This policy it's like the United Kingdom, Sure, yeah, like

0:29:03.120 --> 0:29:06.560
<v Speaker 5>shows up and they're like number one stabbing. Yeah we

0:29:06.600 --> 0:29:09.960
<v Speaker 5>would it didn't It wouldn't matter how like not progressive

0:29:10.000 --> 0:29:10.320
<v Speaker 5>they were.

0:29:10.400 --> 0:29:13.320
<v Speaker 3>We'd be like good for them. I like them. I'm

0:29:13.360 --> 0:29:17.520
<v Speaker 3>gonna vote for them. Like it's just yeah, really, low

0:29:17.560 --> 0:29:18.400
<v Speaker 3>bar is my.

0:29:18.520 --> 0:29:23.200
<v Speaker 2>Point, extremely low bar. The bar is in the fucking

0:29:23.760 --> 0:29:28.200
<v Speaker 2>below the toilet. It has been flushed into the sewer. Right, Yeah,

0:29:28.240 --> 0:29:31.800
<v Speaker 2>so this is also not quite the promise that it seems.

0:29:32.840 --> 0:29:36.880
<v Speaker 2>Now he avoids bringing up, and nobody present feels pressed

0:29:36.880 --> 0:29:40.040
<v Speaker 2>to ask about the Saudi women's rights activists who are

0:29:40.080 --> 0:29:42.880
<v Speaker 2>already in prison for campaigning for their right to drive

0:29:43.640 --> 0:29:45.840
<v Speaker 2>on stage at the Davos, like, there's already women in

0:29:46.000 --> 0:29:48.280
<v Speaker 2>Nobody's like, what about them? Are they getting out? And

0:29:48.440 --> 0:29:51.520
<v Speaker 2>NBS doesn't say shit about that. The next thing he

0:29:51.560 --> 0:29:53.800
<v Speaker 2>brings up on stage at the Davos of the Desert

0:29:53.840 --> 0:29:58.640
<v Speaker 2>event is an exciting history making new Project NEO or

0:29:58.800 --> 0:30:01.680
<v Speaker 2>n e O M, a city built as a one

0:30:01.800 --> 0:30:06.840
<v Speaker 2>Titanic wall, stretching from the Red Sea to the mountains.

0:30:06.400 --> 0:30:11.320
<v Speaker 2>The wallsized skyscraper covered in solar panels. The inside is

0:30:11.360 --> 0:30:15.320
<v Speaker 2>a whole climate controlled city. People. It's gonna be like

0:30:15.360 --> 0:30:19.040
<v Speaker 2>the perfect living place for human beings and our college

0:30:19.920 --> 0:30:20.520
<v Speaker 2>wall town.

0:30:20.760 --> 0:30:20.920
<v Speaker 3>Right.

0:30:21.000 --> 0:30:24.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for the book, NBS quote, businessmen would write the

0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:27.080
<v Speaker 2>laws and entice the world's top minds to innovate on

0:30:27.160 --> 0:30:30.160
<v Speaker 2>Saudi soil, planning for a post carbon future and taking

0:30:30.200 --> 0:30:32.680
<v Speaker 2>advantage of the Saudi sun. The city would be powered

0:30:32.680 --> 0:30:35.320
<v Speaker 2>by solar energies and staffed by so many robots that

0:30:35.360 --> 0:30:39.080
<v Speaker 2>they might outnumber the human inhabitants. Neom Mohammad ban Salmon said,

0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:41.560
<v Speaker 2>would cost five hundred billion dollars and be a place

0:30:41.800 --> 0:30:45.280
<v Speaker 2>for dreamers. It was not an economic development project, but

0:30:45.360 --> 0:30:49.720
<v Speaker 2>a civilizational leap for humanity. At that point, the lights

0:30:49.760 --> 0:30:52.720
<v Speaker 2>dimmed and a video like this one played, and Sophie's

0:30:52.720 --> 0:30:56.320
<v Speaker 2>gonna display that for you now, dave ah sweet.

0:30:58.200 --> 0:31:02.080
<v Speaker 4>For too long, humanity has existed within dysfunctional and polluted

0:31:02.120 --> 0:31:08.040
<v Speaker 4>cities that ignore nature. Now a revolution in civilization is

0:31:08.080 --> 0:31:14.400
<v Speaker 4>taking place. Imagine a traditional city and consolidating its footprint, cramit,

0:31:14.600 --> 0:31:18.760
<v Speaker 4>designing to protect and enhance nature. The line will be

0:31:18.800 --> 0:31:21.720
<v Speaker 4>home to nine million residents and will be built with

0:31:21.760 --> 0:31:25.640
<v Speaker 4>a footprint of just thirty four square kilometers, and we

0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:29.080
<v Speaker 4>are designing it to provide a healthier, more sustainable quality

0:31:29.120 --> 0:31:34.040
<v Speaker 4>of life. The line's communities are organized in three dimensions.

0:31:36.160 --> 0:31:38.720
<v Speaker 3>Man, now, so I love that they're Like? Too long

0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:41.600
<v Speaker 3>have cities not been wall based.

0:31:41.680 --> 0:31:46.000
<v Speaker 2>In big walls? Also, cities don't live in harmony with nature,

0:31:46.520 --> 0:31:51.040
<v Speaker 2>unlike a giant line. Right, like a huge silver wall

0:31:51.360 --> 0:31:54.280
<v Speaker 2>that cuts off birds from their migratory patter.

0:31:54.400 --> 0:31:56.640
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, birds are gonna be smacking into that thing.

0:31:57.160 --> 0:32:01.640
<v Speaker 3>It's it's so tough because like when when when I

0:32:01.720 --> 0:32:04.080
<v Speaker 3>first heard of Wall City, right, I'm like, that's cool

0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:07.080
<v Speaker 3>and cyberpunk and like that's fun. Then watching that ad

0:32:07.120 --> 0:32:10.400
<v Speaker 3>where they take a city and cram it, I was like, oh, right,

0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:15.120
<v Speaker 3>that's that's that's blade Runner, right.

0:32:14.960 --> 0:32:17.240
<v Speaker 2>And it's there's some like bits of wisdom in that,

0:32:17.400 --> 0:32:20.320
<v Speaker 2>like denser urban developments are a lot easier on the

0:32:20.440 --> 0:32:25.120
<v Speaker 2>environment than sprawling ones. Sure, there's probably a future. One

0:32:25.120 --> 0:32:28.160
<v Speaker 2>of the suggested futures of how we would build cities

0:32:28.280 --> 0:32:32.360
<v Speaker 2>is that they are denser, which doesn't mean of low quality,

0:32:32.440 --> 0:32:35.200
<v Speaker 2>but like that they're that you have, like there's a

0:32:35.240 --> 0:32:38.280
<v Speaker 2>lot more space for nature. No one is suggesting a

0:32:38.440 --> 0:32:42.440
<v Speaker 2>giant wall hundreds of feet high and dozens of miles long,

0:32:42.960 --> 0:32:45.800
<v Speaker 2>Like I guess that's the insane thing to build.

0:32:46.160 --> 0:32:48.880
<v Speaker 3>It's neat because it's like what blade Runner would have

0:32:48.920 --> 0:32:51.080
<v Speaker 3>lived in. This is the thing. This is the issue

0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:54.360
<v Speaker 3>I have with everything from the goddamn cyber truck to this,

0:32:54.800 --> 0:32:59.640
<v Speaker 3>which is that I love this. I I'm not embarrassed

0:32:59.640 --> 0:33:02.280
<v Speaker 3>to say that I love the look at the cyber truck.

0:33:02.400 --> 0:33:05.600
<v Speaker 3>I love that bullshit futurist aesthetic. I know it looks

0:33:05.600 --> 0:33:10.560
<v Speaker 3>like shit objectively. But all these dildos it's the same problem,

0:33:10.600 --> 0:33:12.800
<v Speaker 3>which is like they're like, I want to make a

0:33:12.800 --> 0:33:16.800
<v Speaker 3>world like Star Trek, and I think, okay, so number one,

0:33:16.840 --> 0:33:20.160
<v Speaker 3>we get rid of money, and they're like, no robots,

0:33:20.200 --> 0:33:20.760
<v Speaker 3>and it's like.

0:33:20.720 --> 0:33:23.000
<v Speaker 2>No, just a lot of robots. Yeah, we just want

0:33:23.000 --> 0:33:25.160
<v Speaker 2>to make it tall, right.

0:33:25.200 --> 0:33:27.960
<v Speaker 3>They want to make it look like Star Trek. They

0:33:27.960 --> 0:33:32.000
<v Speaker 3>don't want to actually make it Star Trek, where it's

0:33:32.200 --> 0:33:37.800
<v Speaker 3>actually like, oh, we we eliminate like money, and we

0:33:37.800 --> 0:33:41.680
<v Speaker 3>we pour a bunch of efforts into medicine and lifting

0:33:41.800 --> 0:33:44.120
<v Speaker 3>up the lower classes. No, none of that. We just

0:33:44.160 --> 0:33:47.760
<v Speaker 3>want fucking cool, smooth things and like I get it,

0:33:47.800 --> 0:33:52.080
<v Speaker 3>so do I, but I'd rather have the other stuff first.

0:33:52.520 --> 0:33:53.720
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, like wouldn't we all?

0:33:54.440 --> 0:33:58.000
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Wall City. I'm like, I guess, I mean, there's

0:33:58.000 --> 0:34:00.240
<v Speaker 3>too many of us. We should stay out in nature's way.

0:34:00.600 --> 0:34:04.800
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, it's who's doing it. And again it's clearly

0:34:04.840 --> 0:34:08.840
<v Speaker 3>that they're just like they started with, like, he's clearly

0:34:08.960 --> 0:34:11.879
<v Speaker 3>someone who's like, well City, that's cool, right, and.

0:34:11.800 --> 0:34:14.319
<v Speaker 2>That's a great idea as they went from there. We

0:34:14.360 --> 0:34:16.600
<v Speaker 2>may do a dedicated episode about this later because we

0:34:16.600 --> 0:34:19.120
<v Speaker 2>didn't have time in this but this is impossible. The

0:34:19.200 --> 0:34:23.560
<v Speaker 2>project is already run into terminal issues like it is.

0:34:24.000 --> 0:34:28.920
<v Speaker 2>Cost overflows are massive. The Kingdom's financial situation today is

0:34:28.960 --> 0:34:32.719
<v Speaker 2>still not good because again every effort to transition off

0:34:32.719 --> 0:34:36.359
<v Speaker 2>of being entirely reliant on oil money has failed, and

0:34:36.640 --> 0:34:39.160
<v Speaker 2>they never really got over a lot of these central

0:34:39.239 --> 0:34:43.800
<v Speaker 2>issues that were massive problems for the country when MBS

0:34:43.840 --> 0:34:47.040
<v Speaker 2>took power. Like they've been patching over them, but there's

0:34:47.040 --> 0:34:50.120
<v Speaker 2>still problems. And the goal was to get a bunch

0:34:50.160 --> 0:34:52.600
<v Speaker 2>of foreign investment to make this thing possible. Again, they

0:34:52.640 --> 0:34:55.239
<v Speaker 2>were looking at five hundred billion dollars and it's likely

0:34:55.280 --> 0:34:57.560
<v Speaker 2>it'll cost way more than that if they were to

0:34:57.600 --> 0:35:00.240
<v Speaker 2>actually finish this thing. They've dug a bunch of hole.

0:35:00.440 --> 0:35:04.200
<v Speaker 2>They've started construction. It's never going to get built. It's impossible.

0:35:04.680 --> 0:35:08.399
<v Speaker 3>They're starting with the conclusion and not getting there. It's

0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:11.640
<v Speaker 3>again like the cyber truck. I think looks cool, but

0:35:11.680 --> 0:35:14.040
<v Speaker 3>it's clear that he started with the look and then

0:35:14.080 --> 0:35:17.239
<v Speaker 3>the insides are shit and don't make any sense. So

0:35:17.280 --> 0:35:19.440
<v Speaker 3>it's like you're not starting with that fundamental idea of

0:35:19.480 --> 0:35:22.080
<v Speaker 3>like how do people live? How should we how should

0:35:22.080 --> 0:35:25.200
<v Speaker 3>we build a city more efficiently? It started with what

0:35:25.320 --> 0:35:26.680
<v Speaker 3>if Wall makes that.

0:35:26.760 --> 0:35:29.320
<v Speaker 2>We're going to build the city of the future, where

0:35:29.360 --> 0:35:32.759
<v Speaker 2>like a modern society, you know, built by businessmen. All

0:35:32.760 --> 0:35:34.680
<v Speaker 2>of the world's innovators will want to live here. It's like,

0:35:34.719 --> 0:35:40.120
<v Speaker 2>but like alcohol still illegal and women right can't like

0:35:40.320 --> 0:35:42.840
<v Speaker 2>don't shit toget Like, yeah.

0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:46.000
<v Speaker 6>A very non original idea. Man's like, what if I

0:35:46.200 --> 0:35:49.560
<v Speaker 6>start a city? What if I make my own town

0:35:50.160 --> 0:35:54.000
<v Speaker 6>like that? That's a very common thing I fear. And

0:35:54.080 --> 0:35:58.120
<v Speaker 6>if you meet that guy, go please leave me alone

0:35:58.200 --> 0:35:59.240
<v Speaker 6>and then taste them.

0:35:59.640 --> 0:36:02.640
<v Speaker 3>It's a it's a teenager's dream where it's like you

0:36:02.719 --> 0:36:04.560
<v Speaker 3>draw a character where you're like, and he has a

0:36:04.600 --> 0:36:07.920
<v Speaker 3>cool sword and he's that like cool armor, and then

0:36:08.000 --> 0:36:11.200
<v Speaker 3>you think of like what's his personality? Like you're you're

0:36:11.239 --> 0:36:14.480
<v Speaker 3>going backwards right where you're like and it's that where

0:36:14.480 --> 0:36:17.879
<v Speaker 3>they're just like cool Wall city, but are our our

0:36:17.960 --> 0:36:22.280
<v Speaker 3>actual what they said, designed by businessman the laws.

0:36:22.719 --> 0:36:23.880
<v Speaker 6>Imagine meeting that guy at a.

0:36:23.880 --> 0:36:26.960
<v Speaker 2>Bar designed by businessman. Yes, just imagine.

0:36:26.640 --> 0:36:29.160
<v Speaker 1>Meeting that guy not knowing anything about him.

0:36:29.160 --> 0:36:31.719
<v Speaker 6>But the guy comes up to you and is like, yeah,

0:36:31.880 --> 0:36:36.839
<v Speaker 6>I'm gonna build this uh city. The line it's just

0:36:36.880 --> 0:36:40.600
<v Speaker 6>like one really big wall right, you'd be like, please

0:36:40.640 --> 0:36:41.400
<v Speaker 6>get away from me.

0:36:41.960 --> 0:36:43.120
<v Speaker 2>You're terrifying.

0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:45.799
<v Speaker 3>I'd be like, are you Peter Teal? Are you Peter?

0:36:46.320 --> 0:36:48.759
<v Speaker 6>Oh, it's like classic libertarian ship.

0:36:48.920 --> 0:36:52.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah, it is such a libertarian boat city. Oh

0:36:52.680 --> 0:36:53.160
<v Speaker 2>my god.

0:36:53.640 --> 0:36:55.960
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

0:36:56.600 --> 0:36:57.319
<v Speaker 3>Again, I'm not.

0:36:59.600 --> 0:37:03.560
<v Speaker 6>Cool if it was not just like every single time

0:37:03.640 --> 0:37:06.520
<v Speaker 6>it's like the worst people in the world are like exactly.

0:37:06.080 --> 0:37:08.080
<v Speaker 2>I would live on a boat if it was like

0:37:08.120 --> 0:37:11.120
<v Speaker 2>a pirate radio kind of situation, because that movie rips.

0:37:11.280 --> 0:37:13.120
<v Speaker 2>But I'm simply not going to live on a boat

0:37:13.120 --> 0:37:14.360
<v Speaker 2>with a bunch of bitcoin guys.

0:37:14.520 --> 0:37:17.120
<v Speaker 3>I'd rather like That's the thing is, like I if okay,

0:37:17.120 --> 0:37:19.600
<v Speaker 3>if we can't get the good futuristic stuff, I still

0:37:19.600 --> 0:37:21.919
<v Speaker 3>would be it would be cool if my house looked neat,

0:37:22.040 --> 0:37:25.040
<v Speaker 3>you know, like if I had some cyberpunk brutalist house,

0:37:25.400 --> 0:37:28.640
<v Speaker 3>Like that's something at least. But the best version of

0:37:28.680 --> 0:37:33.879
<v Speaker 3>this has ever been Walt Disney designing Epcot and being like,

0:37:34.040 --> 0:37:36.560
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna make a future city and then it got

0:37:36.600 --> 0:37:39.200
<v Speaker 3>too hard and he's like, you know what, I'm going

0:37:39.280 --> 0:37:44.160
<v Speaker 3>to make a theme park. Yeah, he goals, you know,

0:37:44.239 --> 0:37:46.359
<v Speaker 3>he was like, Okay, I'm not the guy to make

0:37:46.360 --> 0:37:50.279
<v Speaker 3>a future city, the experimental prototype City of Tomorrow.

0:37:50.600 --> 0:37:52.160
<v Speaker 2>Turns out that sucks ass.

0:37:52.440 --> 0:37:54.759
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'll just put some fucking rides in there.

0:37:55.040 --> 0:37:58.200
<v Speaker 1>Like he's like, not tomorrow but tomorrow Land.

0:37:58.800 --> 0:38:06.480
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Like good on him.

0:38:03.719 --> 0:38:05.399
<v Speaker 2>As we've famous good guy.

0:38:05.560 --> 0:38:07.800
<v Speaker 3>Well, this good.

0:38:07.640 --> 0:38:09.960
<v Speaker 2>Guy the real hero of these episodes.

0:38:10.200 --> 0:38:12.759
<v Speaker 3>It's a nice reminder that these rich dildos have been

0:38:12.800 --> 0:38:14.759
<v Speaker 3>trying to make cities for a.

0:38:14.880 --> 0:38:17.719
<v Speaker 2>Wivery because they all want to prove they can do

0:38:17.760 --> 0:38:20.160
<v Speaker 2>it better. They want to prove they know what's wrong

0:38:20.200 --> 0:38:23.440
<v Speaker 2>with society. But what none of them understand, and so

0:38:23.440 --> 0:38:25.719
<v Speaker 2>why this is impossible is that it's hard to make

0:38:25.760 --> 0:38:29.279
<v Speaker 2>a good city or a good country because people are

0:38:29.360 --> 0:38:32.120
<v Speaker 2>messy and don't get along. And if your whole thing

0:38:32.200 --> 0:38:34.600
<v Speaker 2>is I don't understand people or like to listen to them,

0:38:34.719 --> 0:38:35.440
<v Speaker 2>you're gonna fail.

0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:39.319
<v Speaker 3>It's that, and it's it's also like Disney famously was

0:38:39.440 --> 0:38:42.719
<v Speaker 3>also like, you know what, I hate zoning laws. These

0:38:42.840 --> 0:38:46.040
<v Speaker 3>rich people they also just don't like following the rules

0:38:46.080 --> 0:38:48.799
<v Speaker 3>of law. So they're like, oh, what if I made

0:38:48.840 --> 0:38:52.400
<v Speaker 3>a city and then it's everybody will love my cool city,

0:38:52.880 --> 0:38:55.040
<v Speaker 3>and then everybody has to do what I say.

0:38:55.520 --> 0:38:58.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then you forget to have any measures to

0:38:58.440 --> 0:39:01.720
<v Speaker 2>prevent the outbreak of cholera. Uh right, so everybody dies.

0:39:03.040 --> 0:39:06.040
<v Speaker 3>Every libertarian city. I feel like every pitch falls apart

0:39:06.040 --> 0:39:08.120
<v Speaker 3>when you go, Okay, and what do you think the

0:39:08.160 --> 0:39:10.759
<v Speaker 3>age of consent will be there? Yeah? Like, because it's

0:39:10.800 --> 0:39:12.040
<v Speaker 3>always a dark answer.

0:39:12.600 --> 0:39:15.640
<v Speaker 2>I see the age of consenting, like, what's gonna who's

0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:17.799
<v Speaker 2>gonna be in charge of the poop? What's gonna happen

0:39:17.800 --> 0:39:19.880
<v Speaker 2>with the poop? You know, where's the poop gone?

0:39:20.360 --> 0:39:21.640
<v Speaker 3>Right? Where's the poop going?

0:39:22.600 --> 0:39:25.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? That's the if you're ever hanging out in like

0:39:25.200 --> 0:39:28.880
<v Speaker 2>an alternate living situation or where someone's trying to like

0:39:28.920 --> 0:39:31.399
<v Speaker 2>build their own community and the first thing they show

0:39:31.440 --> 0:39:33.400
<v Speaker 2>you or close to the first thing isn't and here's

0:39:33.440 --> 0:39:36.759
<v Speaker 2>our toilet solution, those people are going to fail, right,

0:39:37.200 --> 0:39:41.760
<v Speaker 2>you know, unless it's all around poop city, it's poop

0:39:41.800 --> 0:39:45.319
<v Speaker 2>city University, it's all poop oriented.

0:39:45.880 --> 0:39:52.080
<v Speaker 3>There you go, Dave, Yep, you take showers with your buddies. Okay, sorry, wow, sorry,

0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:55.800
<v Speaker 3>thanks Dave. So two weeks after going on this slightly

0:39:55.840 --> 0:39:58.600
<v Speaker 3>fevered Steve Job style rant about how the future was

0:39:58.640 --> 0:40:01.200
<v Speaker 3>a big line city and a country where most people

0:40:01.200 --> 0:40:02.720
<v Speaker 3>didn't think TV should be legal.

0:40:03.200 --> 0:40:06.520
<v Speaker 2>Mohammed had been well powerful people didn't think TV should

0:40:06.520 --> 0:40:09.760
<v Speaker 2>be legal. Mohammad bin Salomon launched his final gambit towards

0:40:09.800 --> 0:40:13.319
<v Speaker 2>consolidating absolute power. He'd spent the days since the Big

0:40:13.400 --> 0:40:16.200
<v Speaker 2>Davos in the Desert event sending his secret police out

0:40:16.200 --> 0:40:18.919
<v Speaker 2>to arrest and transport hundreds of the most powerful people

0:40:19.000 --> 0:40:22.440
<v Speaker 2>in the kingdom to one location. And this included multiple

0:40:22.440 --> 0:40:25.719
<v Speaker 2>members of the royal family as well as billionaire financiers

0:40:25.719 --> 0:40:28.920
<v Speaker 2>who had helped to build the nation's economy. These men

0:40:28.960 --> 0:40:31.400
<v Speaker 2>were taken to the Ritz Carlton and Riyad, one of

0:40:31.440 --> 0:40:34.160
<v Speaker 2>the finest hotels in the world. It was locked down

0:40:34.280 --> 0:40:38.000
<v Speaker 2>for normal business. Its staff was replaced by security officers

0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:41.359
<v Speaker 2>and secret policemen. Guests were made to surrender their cell

0:40:41.360 --> 0:40:44.480
<v Speaker 2>phones and devices. They were separated from their guards and

0:40:44.560 --> 0:40:48.480
<v Speaker 2>sometimes vast fortunes. One of these men was Prince Alwalid

0:40:48.719 --> 0:40:52.000
<v Speaker 2>bin Tallul. He was the most famous businessman in the kingdom.

0:40:52.040 --> 0:40:56.239
<v Speaker 2>A billionaire great grandson of King Abdulaziz, Prince Alwalid was

0:40:56.280 --> 0:40:58.960
<v Speaker 2>as protected a nobleman as you could imagine. He was

0:40:59.040 --> 0:41:01.960
<v Speaker 2>called by the royal one morning in ordered to visit

0:41:02.000 --> 0:41:05.719
<v Speaker 2>the king another billionaire, while Lead al Ibrahim had found

0:41:05.760 --> 0:41:08.000
<v Speaker 2>himself in the same situation a day before. So these

0:41:08.040 --> 0:41:11.920
<v Speaker 2>are guys who should not have been vulnerable to something

0:41:12.040 --> 0:41:15.200
<v Speaker 2>like this, right, But the reality is, and King Salmon

0:41:15.239 --> 0:41:17.880
<v Speaker 2>knows this. These guys are not as rich in reality

0:41:17.920 --> 0:41:20.640
<v Speaker 2>as they seem to be on paper because for decades

0:41:20.880 --> 0:41:23.880
<v Speaker 2>they'd relied on the Saudi state purse and public funds

0:41:23.880 --> 0:41:26.640
<v Speaker 2>to prop up their bad investments and smooth over any

0:41:26.680 --> 0:41:29.839
<v Speaker 2>mistakes they made. And all of the richest people in

0:41:29.840 --> 0:41:32.080
<v Speaker 2>Saudi Arabia were doing this. This is part of why

0:41:32.120 --> 0:41:34.479
<v Speaker 2>the economy was in the shitter, is these guys start

0:41:34.520 --> 0:41:36.759
<v Speaker 2>making bad bets and they're using the kingdom as a

0:41:36.840 --> 0:41:41.160
<v Speaker 2>checkbook to cover their asses. So this mass detainment that

0:41:41.239 --> 0:41:44.319
<v Speaker 2>King Salomon orchestrates of all these guys sends a message

0:41:44.520 --> 0:41:47.320
<v Speaker 2>none of you are untouchable anymore. And I want to

0:41:47.400 --> 0:41:50.040
<v Speaker 2>quote from a summary of what happened by from an

0:41:50.080 --> 0:41:53.800
<v Speaker 2>NBC report by Dan de Luce, Kindlanian and Robert Windram.

0:41:54.360 --> 0:41:56.879
<v Speaker 2>The involuntary guests were told they had to sign away

0:41:56.960 --> 0:41:59.600
<v Speaker 2>large chunks of their assets to be released. The attention

0:41:59.719 --> 0:42:03.680
<v Speaker 2>involve both psychological abuse and in some cases torture. Current

0:42:03.719 --> 0:42:06.960
<v Speaker 2>and former US officials say the move, described by Saudi

0:42:07.000 --> 0:42:10.120
<v Speaker 2>authorities as a crackdown on rampant corruption, allowed the Crown

0:42:10.160 --> 0:42:12.279
<v Speaker 2>Prince to tighten his grip and sent a shockwave through

0:42:12.280 --> 0:42:15.400
<v Speaker 2>the kingdom as elites, This was a shakedown operation and

0:42:15.440 --> 0:42:19.040
<v Speaker 2>a power consolidation operation, said one former senior US official

0:42:19.040 --> 0:42:21.520
<v Speaker 2>who was in office at the time. The RITZ detentions

0:42:21.520 --> 0:42:24.200
<v Speaker 2>were designed to remind people going forward that their wealth

0:42:24.200 --> 0:42:26.440
<v Speaker 2>and their well being would depend on the Crown Prince

0:42:26.480 --> 0:42:28.759
<v Speaker 2>and not on anything else, which is why it was

0:42:28.760 --> 0:42:30.920
<v Speaker 2>so upsetting for many in the royal family, said the

0:42:30.960 --> 0:42:34.719
<v Speaker 2>former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. What

0:42:34.800 --> 0:42:38.680
<v Speaker 2>was that a quote from This is from an NBC report.

0:42:39.400 --> 0:42:40.560
<v Speaker 2>I just love yeah.

0:42:40.680 --> 0:42:43.120
<v Speaker 3>Involuntary guest, perfect.

0:42:44.120 --> 0:42:48.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, voluntary guest of the RITZ Carlton, Yes, may

0:42:48.680 --> 0:42:52.319
<v Speaker 2>have been tortured. Involuntary guest. Just call him prisoners at

0:42:52.320 --> 0:42:54.760
<v Speaker 2>this point. So this is what brings us to Mohammed

0:42:54.800 --> 0:42:57.800
<v Speaker 2>and Salmon's most notorious crime, although certainly not his worst,

0:42:58.040 --> 0:43:03.240
<v Speaker 2>the brutal murder of Washington postureournalist Jamal Koshogi. Now, Jamal,

0:43:03.640 --> 0:43:05.680
<v Speaker 2>if you have haven't heard much about this guy, he

0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:08.800
<v Speaker 2>came from almost as rarefied a social circle as Mohammed

0:43:08.800 --> 0:43:14.080
<v Speaker 2>Bnsalman himself. His grandfather, a doctor, had treated MBS's grandfather,

0:43:14.239 --> 0:43:17.440
<v Speaker 2>the King. He was a close relative to billionaire arms

0:43:17.440 --> 0:43:20.480
<v Speaker 2>dealer ad Non Koshogi, who was involved in like eighty

0:43:20.480 --> 0:43:22.440
<v Speaker 2>percent of the shady deals that took place in the

0:43:22.520 --> 0:43:26.200
<v Speaker 2>nineteen nineties. Jamal got involved in the Muslim Brotherhood while

0:43:26.239 --> 0:43:28.160
<v Speaker 2>in college, and he worked as a journalist for an

0:43:28.160 --> 0:43:31.400
<v Speaker 2>English language paper out of Jeddah. Once he graduated, he

0:43:31.480 --> 0:43:33.520
<v Speaker 2>winds up on the ground floor of reporting on the

0:43:33.600 --> 0:43:38.400
<v Speaker 2>Musjahdeen's resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Kashogi arguably

0:43:38.440 --> 0:43:41.399
<v Speaker 2>crossed the line from reporter to participant during at least

0:43:41.400 --> 0:43:44.080
<v Speaker 2>one part of the conflict. He became a well known

0:43:44.120 --> 0:43:47.160
<v Speaker 2>figure within the world of Islamic militancy and secured an

0:43:47.160 --> 0:43:51.879
<v Speaker 2>invitation to talk with another influential Saudi militant, Osama bin Laden. Right,

0:43:51.920 --> 0:43:55.319
<v Speaker 2>so this is a journalist who's reporting on this, you know,

0:43:55.840 --> 0:43:59.280
<v Speaker 2>jihad against the Soviets. He'd at least at one point

0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:02.480
<v Speaker 2>crosses for being a journalist to being a combatant, and

0:44:02.520 --> 0:44:04.440
<v Speaker 2>as a result he has a lot of klout with

0:44:04.560 --> 0:44:06.560
<v Speaker 2>these other militants, and so he gets to hang out

0:44:06.560 --> 0:44:11.200
<v Speaker 2>with bin Laden. Now. Ultimately, Kashogi winds up disillusioned by

0:44:11.239 --> 0:44:14.000
<v Speaker 2>the failure of the revolution in Afghanistan. He had been

0:44:14.040 --> 0:44:17.680
<v Speaker 2>a guy who had hoped will create something better than

0:44:17.719 --> 0:44:20.359
<v Speaker 2>what had existed before, if we can kick the Soviets out,

0:44:20.520 --> 0:44:24.480
<v Speaker 2>and instead we get the Taliban. And Kashogi's not delusional.

0:44:24.560 --> 0:44:26.719
<v Speaker 2>He can see the Taliban is bad, and so he

0:44:26.760 --> 0:44:30.719
<v Speaker 2>comes home being like, well, that didn't fucking work, right, Yeah, shit,

0:44:31.040 --> 0:44:32.479
<v Speaker 2>what do I do with my life now?

0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:36.920
<v Speaker 3>It's tough. It's tough when your buddy has become the Taliban.

0:44:37.080 --> 0:44:39.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's tough when your buddies become the Taliban. Nobody

0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:42.239
<v Speaker 2>wants that to happen to their buddies. Dave, No, I'm

0:44:42.280 --> 0:44:44.920
<v Speaker 2>happy that you've continued writing for the Internet as opposed

0:44:44.960 --> 0:44:46.000
<v Speaker 2>to becoming the Taliban.

0:44:46.320 --> 0:44:49.680
<v Speaker 3>Right now, I had that crossroads, but yeah, it would.

0:44:49.480 --> 0:44:55.000
<v Speaker 2>Have been logistically confusing too, yeah oh yeah. Yeah. So

0:44:55.239 --> 0:44:57.799
<v Speaker 2>when he returns home to Saudi Arabi, he's arguably the

0:44:57.800 --> 0:45:00.200
<v Speaker 2>most influential journalist in the kingdom. He's one of them,

0:45:00.560 --> 0:45:03.840
<v Speaker 2>and he's developed close working relationships with several highly placed

0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:06.080
<v Speaker 2>members of the royal family, and he spends the next

0:45:06.400 --> 0:45:09.600
<v Speaker 2>couple of decades as both an influential critic and pillar

0:45:09.640 --> 0:45:13.360
<v Speaker 2>of the power system. So he is integrated tightly within

0:45:13.680 --> 0:45:16.600
<v Speaker 2>kind of the upper strata of Saudi Arabia. He's very

0:45:16.640 --> 0:45:20.759
<v Speaker 2>well regarded. He's also someone who can periodically critique what

0:45:20.880 --> 0:45:23.799
<v Speaker 2>decisions that are being made by the powerful in Saudi Arabia,

0:45:23.840 --> 0:45:25.920
<v Speaker 2>and he sees himself as like a mouthpiece for the

0:45:26.000 --> 0:45:28.120
<v Speaker 2>poor in Saudi Arabia, for the working class. As a

0:45:28.120 --> 0:45:31.480
<v Speaker 2>result of that, he can occasionally speak some truth to power,

0:45:31.680 --> 0:45:34.279
<v Speaker 2>right or speak truth to the rest of the world

0:45:34.280 --> 0:45:36.399
<v Speaker 2>about what's going on in Saudi Arabia. That's at least

0:45:36.400 --> 0:45:39.160
<v Speaker 2>how you'll see this guy written about speaking of people

0:45:39.160 --> 0:45:42.800
<v Speaker 2>who speak truth to power. These ads will speak truth

0:45:42.880 --> 0:45:47.280
<v Speaker 2>to the greatest power in the world. Your wallet, Wow,

0:45:48.480 --> 0:46:03.040
<v Speaker 2>not by wallet and we're back. So Jamal Kashogi, after

0:46:03.440 --> 0:46:05.560
<v Speaker 2>a period of time as one of the more influential

0:46:05.719 --> 0:46:07.920
<v Speaker 2>journalists in Saudi Arabia, is going to do kind of

0:46:07.920 --> 0:46:10.440
<v Speaker 2>the most dangerous thing you can do in the kingdom,

0:46:10.600 --> 0:46:15.279
<v Speaker 2>which is express support for reforms that everyone knows are necessary,

0:46:15.640 --> 0:46:19.239
<v Speaker 2>but that the Crown, Prince and King haven't embraced yet right,

0:46:19.680 --> 0:46:22.000
<v Speaker 2>He's going to be ahead of the curve on some

0:46:22.120 --> 0:46:24.279
<v Speaker 2>important things, and that's going to make him a lot

0:46:24.280 --> 0:46:27.840
<v Speaker 2>of enemies. Ben Hubbard writes. He was appointed editor of

0:46:27.920 --> 0:46:30.400
<v Speaker 2>Al Watan newspaper and used it to push for women's

0:46:30.440 --> 0:46:33.560
<v Speaker 2>rights while criticizing the role of the religious establishment. He

0:46:33.600 --> 0:46:36.520
<v Speaker 2>didn't last long after all, Kaita bombings killed twenty five

0:46:36.560 --> 0:46:39.080
<v Speaker 2>people in Riyad in two thousand and three. Koshogi pinnon

0:46:39.200 --> 0:46:41.879
<v Speaker 2>editorial attacking not only the terrorists but the clerics who

0:46:41.920 --> 0:46:45.000
<v Speaker 2>gave them power. Jamal wound up driven to the United States,

0:46:45.040 --> 0:46:47.480
<v Speaker 2>where he would live at time through the coming years,

0:46:47.600 --> 0:46:50.200
<v Speaker 2>whenever things got too hot for him. Back in the Kingdom,

0:46:50.480 --> 0:46:53.920
<v Speaker 2>he was predictably a big supporter of the Arab Spring,

0:46:54.200 --> 0:46:57.640
<v Speaker 2>which further caused consternation among the powerful. During the rise

0:46:57.640 --> 0:47:00.960
<v Speaker 2>of Isis, Koshogi compared the terrorist movements ideology to the

0:47:01.040 --> 0:47:04.920
<v Speaker 2>kingdom's own Wahabist beliefs. He initially supported Solomon as king

0:47:05.160 --> 0:47:07.800
<v Speaker 2>and was bullish on the reforms that he and MBS

0:47:07.920 --> 0:47:11.560
<v Speaker 2>introduced against the religious police and endemic corruption. So when

0:47:11.920 --> 0:47:14.640
<v Speaker 2>MBS first comes to power, Kaushogi's a big backer because

0:47:14.640 --> 0:47:16.560
<v Speaker 2>he sees this guy's kind of the answer to his prayers,

0:47:16.880 --> 0:47:19.080
<v Speaker 2>someone who will stick up to the worst and most

0:47:19.120 --> 0:47:23.040
<v Speaker 2>like conservative elements in our society. Right, this guy might

0:47:23.400 --> 0:47:26.680
<v Speaker 2>be a sign of hope. Koshogi acted for a while

0:47:26.719 --> 0:47:29.840
<v Speaker 2>as a dogged defender of the new king to international critics.

0:47:30.080 --> 0:47:32.240
<v Speaker 2>He was important enough to be included in a public

0:47:32.280 --> 0:47:34.720
<v Speaker 2>meeting between Mohammed and Salmon and a group of clerics

0:47:34.719 --> 0:47:38.600
<v Speaker 2>and intellectuals in twenty sixteen. Ben Hubbard reports that MBS

0:47:38.760 --> 0:47:40.920
<v Speaker 2>talked to the crowd about his plans for economic and

0:47:40.960 --> 0:47:44.560
<v Speaker 2>political reform. Kashogi asked him, why don't you talk about

0:47:44.600 --> 0:47:46.600
<v Speaker 2>any of this in public? If you're in favor of

0:47:46.600 --> 0:47:49.239
<v Speaker 2>all these reforms, why won't you tell people about them?

0:47:49.280 --> 0:47:52.200
<v Speaker 2>Why are we having this meeting in private? And Nbs says,

0:47:52.200 --> 0:47:54.439
<v Speaker 2>in short, you can just write about what I've said here,

0:47:54.680 --> 0:47:57.600
<v Speaker 2>put it in the newspaper, tell everybody what I'm saying. Right,

0:47:58.000 --> 0:48:01.000
<v Speaker 2>I'm giving you permission to make this public, right, okay.

0:48:01.120 --> 0:48:03.719
<v Speaker 2>So Jamal is like, all right, I fucking will, and

0:48:03.760 --> 0:48:06.799
<v Speaker 2>he takes this as an invitation to report openly on

0:48:06.840 --> 0:48:10.319
<v Speaker 2>the Prince's crusade to modernize the kingdom. This would prove

0:48:10.400 --> 0:48:11.359
<v Speaker 2>to be something of a.

0:48:11.360 --> 0:48:18.719
<v Speaker 3>Mistake, man, because it's like, yeah, go write it. I'd

0:48:18.760 --> 0:48:21.600
<v Speaker 3>be like, mmm, do you really want that?

0:48:22.560 --> 0:48:24.799
<v Speaker 2>Never trust the prince when he's like, oh, I want

0:48:24.800 --> 0:48:27.000
<v Speaker 2>a journalist to hold my feet to the fire. Are

0:48:27.040 --> 0:48:29.480
<v Speaker 2>you kidding me? Accountability That's what kings.

0:48:29.280 --> 0:48:34.279
<v Speaker 3>Love, man. I mean, I'm not blaming him, like, it's

0:48:34.320 --> 0:48:36.640
<v Speaker 3>just like it's just like you can see it all

0:48:36.719 --> 0:48:41.000
<v Speaker 3>unfolding here. Yeah, because saying I'd go like, okay, yeah.

0:48:40.840 --> 0:48:45.640
<v Speaker 2>Ok I guess yeah. In the fall of twenty seventeen,

0:48:45.760 --> 0:48:49.360
<v Speaker 2>having silenced his most powerful detractors, nbs A security forces

0:48:49.440 --> 0:48:53.040
<v Speaker 2>launched a crack down on their little enemies. Eighty dissidents

0:48:53.040 --> 0:48:56.000
<v Speaker 2>were arrested. Most were clerics who were either too conservative

0:48:56.120 --> 0:48:59.640
<v Speaker 2>or too progressive. The rest were political reformers and as

0:48:59.640 --> 0:49:03.480
<v Speaker 2>been rights individuals who had annoyed MBS and his aids

0:49:03.520 --> 0:49:06.040
<v Speaker 2>in some way or another. One was an economist who

0:49:06.040 --> 0:49:09.040
<v Speaker 2>had questioned the wisdom of privatizing a Ramko. Another was

0:49:09.080 --> 0:49:11.319
<v Speaker 2>a poet who had called on journalists to avoid harsh

0:49:11.440 --> 0:49:14.560
<v Speaker 2>language and a dispute with Cutter. So these are just

0:49:14.560 --> 0:49:18.520
<v Speaker 2>guys getting arrested for bugging, you know, Turkey uh or

0:49:18.640 --> 0:49:21.879
<v Speaker 2>Mohammed Ben Salomon you know, yes, for any reason.

0:49:21.840 --> 0:49:25.120
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to do my petty tour here, Mike asshole tour.

0:49:25.760 --> 0:49:29.480
<v Speaker 2>I've gotten rid of the big enemies. One prominent detainee

0:49:29.520 --> 0:49:32.760
<v Speaker 2>was a cleric named Salmon Alauda. In his younger days,

0:49:32.760 --> 0:49:35.160
<v Speaker 2>he'd been an extreme fundamentalist, and he'd spent time in

0:49:35.160 --> 0:49:38.080
<v Speaker 2>prison for demeaning the royal family arguing against their right

0:49:38.160 --> 0:49:41.759
<v Speaker 2>to rule. In more recent years, he'd become almost a progressive,

0:49:42.080 --> 0:49:45.560
<v Speaker 2>hosting popular shows on YouTube and television, and building a

0:49:45.600 --> 0:49:49.600
<v Speaker 2>massive younger following on social media with generally positive, upbeat

0:49:49.680 --> 0:49:53.000
<v Speaker 2>videos about Islam and modern life. What really got him

0:49:53.040 --> 0:49:57.280
<v Speaker 2>in trouble was his growing embrace of constitutional monarchy. I'llauda

0:49:57.400 --> 0:49:59.320
<v Speaker 2>frame this as an attempt to help the Kingdom and

0:49:59.400 --> 0:50:01.799
<v Speaker 2>House of South avoid an Arab spring of their own.

0:50:02.160 --> 0:50:04.880
<v Speaker 2>He gently suggested that the government might try to listen

0:50:04.920 --> 0:50:07.799
<v Speaker 2>to its people a little more, rather than governing by

0:50:07.800 --> 0:50:10.280
<v Speaker 2>the whims of Mohammed bin Salmon and his ailing father.

0:50:10.719 --> 0:50:13.680
<v Speaker 2>He was arrested and has been held in solitary confinement

0:50:13.760 --> 0:50:16.719
<v Speaker 2>from September of twenty seventeen up to the present day.

0:50:17.160 --> 0:50:19.759
<v Speaker 2>His brother complained about the arrest on Twitter and has

0:50:19.800 --> 0:50:22.560
<v Speaker 2>also been detained. If his case ever comes to trial,

0:50:22.600 --> 0:50:24.600
<v Speaker 2>he could get the death penalty, although given the fact

0:50:24.640 --> 0:50:27.120
<v Speaker 2>that his health is deteriorated by in bars, that may

0:50:27.160 --> 0:50:29.239
<v Speaker 2>not be he could be dead now I don't think

0:50:29.280 --> 0:50:33.279
<v Speaker 2>we know. Um wow, there's a lot of guys like that.

0:50:34.000 --> 0:50:36.279
<v Speaker 2>The whole RITZ Carlton affair was carried on in a

0:50:36.320 --> 0:50:38.759
<v Speaker 2>very hush hush manner by the Kingdom Security Forces. They

0:50:38.760 --> 0:50:41.440
<v Speaker 2>obviously wanted everyone to know the broad strokes of what

0:50:41.560 --> 0:50:44.839
<v Speaker 2>had gone down, and there were specific names they wanted publicized,

0:50:45.080 --> 0:50:47.880
<v Speaker 2>but the government never released a comprehensive list of names,

0:50:48.000 --> 0:50:51.080
<v Speaker 2>and only accused them vaguely of intelligence activities for the

0:50:51.080 --> 0:50:54.560
<v Speaker 2>benefit of foreign parties and engaging in espionage while having

0:50:54.600 --> 0:50:58.080
<v Speaker 2>contact with external entities. The Muslim Brotherhood was named as

0:50:58.120 --> 0:51:02.560
<v Speaker 2>a specific example. Long term consequences ranged from prison terms

0:51:02.600 --> 0:51:05.560
<v Speaker 2>to home detention. Some people were let go entirely with

0:51:05.640 --> 0:51:08.239
<v Speaker 2>the equivalent of a warning. Nearly all spent days or

0:51:08.280 --> 0:51:10.560
<v Speaker 2>weeks detained at the RITZ without any charge or clear

0:51:10.600 --> 0:51:12.920
<v Speaker 2>idea of what crimes they were expected to answer to.

0:51:13.440 --> 0:51:16.279
<v Speaker 2>Some were certainly executed, Although it's impossible for us to

0:51:16.280 --> 0:51:19.879
<v Speaker 2>make any clear estimates about how many people suffered. Want punishments.

0:51:21.200 --> 0:51:24.920
<v Speaker 3>The crime was bugging him. It was crime was bugging them.

0:51:24.960 --> 0:51:28.600
<v Speaker 2>Bugging them, Yeah, bugging him or other people like you, Yes,

0:51:28.800 --> 0:51:32.760
<v Speaker 2>the two great crimes. On June twenty fourth, twenty eighteen,

0:51:32.800 --> 0:51:36.280
<v Speaker 2>Saudi Arabia officially lifted its ban on women driving. Prince

0:51:36.320 --> 0:51:39.200
<v Speaker 2>Alwalid bin Tallal, fresh off being released from the RITZ

0:51:39.440 --> 0:51:41.480
<v Speaker 2>praised the move on social media and went on a

0:51:41.480 --> 0:51:44.680
<v Speaker 2>public drive with his daughter and granddaughter. He tweeted, there

0:51:44.719 --> 0:51:46.880
<v Speaker 2>is no doubt that the thoughts of my brother Mohammed

0:51:46.920 --> 0:51:49.439
<v Speaker 2>ben Salomon led to this great result. Women have now

0:51:49.480 --> 0:51:52.400
<v Speaker 2>taken off gotten their freedom. That's all they needed was

0:51:52.440 --> 0:51:52.839
<v Speaker 2>to drive.

0:51:53.800 --> 0:51:54.680
<v Speaker 3>God that may.

0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:58.960
<v Speaker 2>Mere weeks earlier, NBS's police had carried out a massive

0:51:58.960 --> 0:52:02.600
<v Speaker 2>crackdown on women's rights activists. Ten women and seven men

0:52:02.719 --> 0:52:05.400
<v Speaker 2>at least were arrested over their work campaigning to end

0:52:05.400 --> 0:52:08.920
<v Speaker 2>the driving band that Muhammad himself Ben Solomon himself had

0:52:09.040 --> 0:52:12.479
<v Speaker 2>ordered ended. From an article in The Guardian, Amnesty said

0:52:12.480 --> 0:52:14.840
<v Speaker 2>that according to three testimonies it obtained, some of the

0:52:14.880 --> 0:52:18.359
<v Speaker 2>activists were repeatedly given electric shocks and flogged, leaving some

0:52:18.480 --> 0:52:21.120
<v Speaker 2>unable to walk or stand properly, and one instance an

0:52:21.120 --> 0:52:23.920
<v Speaker 2>activist was hung from the ceiling. Another testimony said one

0:52:23.960 --> 0:52:27.239
<v Speaker 2>of the detained women was subjected to sexual harassment by

0:52:27.239 --> 0:52:31.799
<v Speaker 2>interrogators wearing face masks. Jesus, so these are this is

0:52:31.920 --> 0:52:35.280
<v Speaker 2>like weeks before he ends the band, and their crime

0:52:35.320 --> 0:52:37.440
<v Speaker 2>is not that they want the band in. The crime

0:52:37.520 --> 0:52:41.000
<v Speaker 2>is that they're advocating. They're saying that the country's doing

0:52:41.040 --> 0:52:43.840
<v Speaker 2>something wrong, that a law needs to change because it's wrong,

0:52:44.120 --> 0:52:46.239
<v Speaker 2>and that's criticism. We can't have that, no, sir.

0:52:47.800 --> 0:52:51.520
<v Speaker 3>It's just that it's that fucking that vibe, right, the

0:52:51.680 --> 0:52:56.799
<v Speaker 3>like hashtag girl boss vibe where it's like on top

0:52:56.880 --> 0:53:00.439
<v Speaker 3>of just some of the worst things ever, it's short

0:53:00.480 --> 0:53:03.680
<v Speaker 3>circuits your brain where they're like patenting themselves on the

0:53:03.760 --> 0:53:05.719
<v Speaker 3>back at the same time they're doing this.

0:53:07.280 --> 0:53:10.799
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's just setting yeah, yeah, yeah, you hate to

0:53:10.840 --> 0:53:15.239
<v Speaker 2>see it. A Saudi female race car driver and again

0:53:15.280 --> 0:53:18.839
<v Speaker 2>there's this, there's weeks long pr push in the wake

0:53:18.920 --> 0:53:21.719
<v Speaker 2>of this. A Saudi female race car driver is given

0:53:21.760 --> 0:53:24.560
<v Speaker 2>her license in a grand ceremony in Riod and allowed

0:53:24.600 --> 0:53:27.600
<v Speaker 2>to take a celebratory lap through the capitol. Weeks before

0:53:27.600 --> 0:53:30.480
<v Speaker 2>she would help to open the French Grand Prix. Journalists

0:53:30.520 --> 0:53:32.799
<v Speaker 2>were warned that she would not make any comment about

0:53:32.840 --> 0:53:37.719
<v Speaker 2>women's rights. This eloquently showcased Ben Salmon's attitude towards social progress.

0:53:37.880 --> 0:53:40.560
<v Speaker 2>He would do the minimum necessary, but he would also

0:53:40.640 --> 0:53:43.520
<v Speaker 2>brutally punish anyone who made the mistake of embracing change

0:53:43.600 --> 0:53:46.279
<v Speaker 2>before he did, and he'd expect to be right.

0:53:47.280 --> 0:53:49.440
<v Speaker 3>It's just I'm going to give you what I give you,

0:53:49.480 --> 0:53:51.719
<v Speaker 3>and you better not ask for more, and you.

0:53:51.680 --> 0:53:54.160
<v Speaker 2>Better not have asked for what I'm giving you previously.

0:53:54.520 --> 0:53:56.960
<v Speaker 6>Because he wants people to like him, he wants to

0:53:57.160 --> 0:53:58.440
<v Speaker 6>he wants to be worshiped.

0:53:59.120 --> 0:54:01.759
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you're also to praise me every step of the way.

0:54:01.760 --> 0:54:03.680
<v Speaker 2>You're going to be thanking me for what I've given you.

0:54:03.960 --> 0:54:05.600
<v Speaker 3>I mean, we had a discussion like that, you know,

0:54:05.640 --> 0:54:08.680
<v Speaker 3>when we legalized weed. It became this thing of like

0:54:08.960 --> 0:54:12.400
<v Speaker 3>maybe we should let the people in jail for that. Yeah,

0:54:12.440 --> 0:54:16.399
<v Speaker 3>Like it's it's similar. But except if you say that,

0:54:16.480 --> 0:54:18.120
<v Speaker 3>you'll be executed.

0:54:17.960 --> 0:54:24.000
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, you shouldn't say that. So yeah. Luayne al

0:54:24.040 --> 0:54:27.279
<v Speaker 2>Hathlul had gained notoriety in twenty fourteen when she was

0:54:27.400 --> 0:54:30.040
<v Speaker 2>arrested for trying to drive her car from the UAE

0:54:30.239 --> 0:54:33.400
<v Speaker 2>into Saudi Arabia. She was released after more than seventy

0:54:33.480 --> 0:54:36.080
<v Speaker 2>days in prison the month after Salomon was made king.

0:54:36.560 --> 0:54:39.560
<v Speaker 2>This was initially seen as a reason for optimism towards

0:54:39.560 --> 0:54:43.120
<v Speaker 2>the new king and his son. Al Hathlul had continued

0:54:43.120 --> 0:54:45.560
<v Speaker 2>to speak out against the kingdom's laws and participated in

0:54:45.600 --> 0:54:49.400
<v Speaker 2>a major foreign documentary that criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights record.

0:54:49.719 --> 0:54:52.160
<v Speaker 2>She'd been living overseas with her husband when she returned

0:54:52.160 --> 0:54:54.880
<v Speaker 2>home in twenty seventeen and was arrested as part of

0:54:55.440 --> 0:54:59.360
<v Speaker 2>NBS's wider crackdown on dissent. She was released and expanded

0:54:59.360 --> 0:55:02.360
<v Speaker 2>the scope of her activism, pushing against the kingdom's guardian

0:55:02.400 --> 0:55:05.680
<v Speaker 2>ship laws, which made women basically legal miners in perpetuity.

0:55:06.000 --> 0:55:07.960
<v Speaker 2>She was invited to speak at the UN where she

0:55:08.040 --> 0:55:11.239
<v Speaker 2>directly called kingdom representatives out for denying the existence of

0:55:11.239 --> 0:55:14.959
<v Speaker 2>guardianship laws. This was the straw that broke the camel's back.

0:55:15.239 --> 0:55:17.520
<v Speaker 2>A month after this, she was kidnapped from her home

0:55:17.560 --> 0:55:20.320
<v Speaker 2>in Abu Dhabi and flown to Saudi Arabia. She was

0:55:20.400 --> 0:55:23.480
<v Speaker 2>released after a month, but forbidden from leaving the country. Then,

0:55:23.680 --> 0:55:26.080
<v Speaker 2>just before the driving band was repealed, she was swept

0:55:26.120 --> 0:55:29.200
<v Speaker 2>up in a mass arrest with other prominent women's rights activists,

0:55:30.440 --> 0:55:33.000
<v Speaker 2>and this is like part of this big sweep that

0:55:33.040 --> 0:55:35.960
<v Speaker 2>I had talked about just a second ago. Right Punishments

0:55:35.960 --> 0:55:38.160
<v Speaker 2>for these activists and their supporters ran the gamut, from

0:55:38.200 --> 0:55:41.400
<v Speaker 2>jail time to travel bands to torture. The Kingdom's captive

0:55:41.480 --> 0:55:44.440
<v Speaker 2>news media embarked in a campaign of slandering the reputations

0:55:44.440 --> 0:55:48.359
<v Speaker 2>of those incarcerated, and some prisoners, including al Hdlul, were

0:55:48.360 --> 0:55:52.040
<v Speaker 2>tortured by officers of the Rapid Intervention Group. This was

0:55:52.080 --> 0:55:55.480
<v Speaker 2>a recently assembled team of black ops guys overseen by

0:55:55.480 --> 0:55:58.319
<v Speaker 2>a guy named Sawud al Katani, and operated as the

0:55:58.360 --> 0:56:02.120
<v Speaker 2>personal enforcers of Muhammeddan's Solomon. Anyone who annoyed him was

0:56:02.200 --> 0:56:05.920
<v Speaker 2>fair game for kidnapping, torture, and murder. The women were

0:56:06.000 --> 0:56:08.880
<v Speaker 2>kept in tiny rooms with covered windows. They were taken

0:56:08.920 --> 0:56:12.000
<v Speaker 2>to be interrogated and tortured frequently by men who mostly

0:56:12.040 --> 0:56:14.799
<v Speaker 2>wanted to humiliate them. They were sexually harassed a lot.

0:56:14.840 --> 0:56:17.759
<v Speaker 2>They were shocked with like cattle prods. They were just

0:56:17.840 --> 0:56:22.279
<v Speaker 2>beaten the old fashioned way. El Hathlwell was waterboarded on

0:56:22.360 --> 0:56:26.680
<v Speaker 2>several occasions. Al Katani oversaw her torture directly. Sometimes he

0:56:26.680 --> 0:56:29.360
<v Speaker 2>would threaten to rape her repeatedly and throw her body

0:56:29.400 --> 0:56:32.440
<v Speaker 2>in the sewer. This is the kind of stuff that

0:56:32.440 --> 0:56:34.759
<v Speaker 2>they're doing. And they're doing this during Ramadan. He and

0:56:34.760 --> 0:56:36.600
<v Speaker 2>his men are torturing her throughout the night.

0:56:37.160 --> 0:56:37.359
<v Speaker 3>Uh.

0:56:37.400 --> 0:56:39.480
<v Speaker 2>And they forced her to eat after the sun comes up,

0:56:39.520 --> 0:56:44.560
<v Speaker 2>when she's not supposed to be eating. So, yeah, this

0:56:44.640 --> 0:56:46.200
<v Speaker 2>is a pretty gross stuff, right.

0:56:47.120 --> 0:56:49.799
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, Robert, because because Dave Chappelle said it's

0:56:49.840 --> 0:56:52.120
<v Speaker 3>easier to talk in Saudi Arabia.

0:56:51.760 --> 0:56:53.719
<v Speaker 2>It's easier to talk in Saudi Arabia unless.

0:56:55.200 --> 0:56:59.920
<v Speaker 3>Because of wokeness here they don't have Jesus's fucking Christ. Yeah, horrific.

0:57:00.840 --> 0:57:04.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it would be operatives of the same Rapid Intervention

0:57:04.320 --> 0:57:06.920
<v Speaker 2>Group that Mohammad bin Salmon called upon to murder now

0:57:06.920 --> 0:57:10.239
<v Speaker 2>dissidant journalist Jamal Kashogi. He had written critically if the

0:57:10.280 --> 0:57:13.399
<v Speaker 2>princes ritz Carlton kidnapping spree the previous year and about

0:57:13.440 --> 0:57:16.720
<v Speaker 2>the ongoing detention of women's driving advocates. What he didn't

0:57:16.760 --> 0:57:19.200
<v Speaker 2>know was that mere months before MBS started his campaign

0:57:19.280 --> 0:57:21.440
<v Speaker 2>to destroy a cent, he sent agents of his Rapid

0:57:21.440 --> 0:57:24.960
<v Speaker 2>Intervention Group, mostly military veterans, to the US so they

0:57:25.000 --> 0:57:28.200
<v Speaker 2>could train with a private security firm the Tier one Group.

0:57:28.480 --> 0:57:31.240
<v Speaker 2>Per The New York Times, the mercenary firm Quote is

0:57:31.280 --> 0:57:34.760
<v Speaker 2>owned by the private equity firm Serveris Capital Management. The

0:57:34.800 --> 0:57:38.640
<v Speaker 2>company says the training, including safe marksmanship and countering an attack,

0:57:39.040 --> 0:57:42.200
<v Speaker 2>was defensive in nature and designed to better protect Saudi leaders.

0:57:42.560 --> 0:57:45.680
<v Speaker 2>One person familiar with the training Senate also included work

0:57:45.680 --> 0:57:49.560
<v Speaker 2>in surveillance. Yes, said the good Man. It's Serverist Capital

0:57:49.600 --> 0:57:53.320
<v Speaker 2>Management have a private army that the trade Mohammad bin

0:57:53.400 --> 0:57:55.040
<v Speaker 2>Salmon's goon squad.

0:57:55.280 --> 0:57:58.520
<v Speaker 3>Rich people for the longest time. It's the weirdest thing

0:57:58.800 --> 0:58:03.280
<v Speaker 3>that how how are just like palenteer, Like they're just

0:58:03.520 --> 0:58:06.400
<v Speaker 3>you know what, We're not gonna even murnerk. Yeah, We're

0:58:06.480 --> 0:58:08.280
<v Speaker 3>just we're let's call it like it is. It's like

0:58:08.320 --> 0:58:11.280
<v Speaker 3>the only honesty they have. It's so weird. Yeah.

0:58:11.440 --> 0:58:14.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, my new capital management firm, I just shot a

0:58:14.400 --> 0:58:18.720
<v Speaker 2>baby Incorporated. Yeah yeah, named after the time I shot

0:58:18.760 --> 0:58:22.240
<v Speaker 2>a baby. Oh, it's great stuff.

0:58:24.320 --> 0:58:24.400
<v Speaker 4>So.

0:58:24.600 --> 0:58:28.400
<v Speaker 2>Kushogi himself had fled Saudi Arabia in June of twenty seventeen,

0:58:28.440 --> 0:58:30.360
<v Speaker 2>having seen the writing on the wall of the RITZ.

0:58:30.720 --> 0:58:33.480
<v Speaker 2>He had escalated his criticisms of the regime and NBS

0:58:33.520 --> 0:58:35.920
<v Speaker 2>in particular and had launched a series of projects with

0:58:35.960 --> 0:58:39.360
<v Speaker 2>the aim of collecting and amplifying foreign descent against the government.

0:58:39.760 --> 0:58:41.920
<v Speaker 2>Because he was too clever to fly back into the country,

0:58:41.960 --> 0:58:44.680
<v Speaker 2>Saudi operatives had to nab him overseas in order to

0:58:44.720 --> 0:58:49.240
<v Speaker 2>stop his inconvenient criticisms. Saud Al Katani, NBS's triggerman, is

0:58:49.280 --> 0:58:51.560
<v Speaker 2>known to have organized an effort to take the effort

0:58:51.560 --> 0:58:54.480
<v Speaker 2>to take out Kushogi. They finally caught him in Turkey.

0:58:54.640 --> 0:58:57.880
<v Speaker 2>A fifteen member intervention group team fell upon the journalist

0:58:57.960 --> 0:59:01.440
<v Speaker 2>as he visited the Saudi consulate and stenbull seeking papers

0:59:01.440 --> 0:59:04.120
<v Speaker 2>to make his marriage to his fiance official. Well she

0:59:04.200 --> 0:59:07.240
<v Speaker 2>waited outside, the tam attacked him. The Kingdom would later

0:59:07.240 --> 0:59:09.080
<v Speaker 2>claim their job was just to take him back to

0:59:09.120 --> 0:59:12.320
<v Speaker 2>Saudi Arabia, but he resisted and so was injected with

0:59:12.360 --> 0:59:15.040
<v Speaker 2>a large dose of something that killed him. His body

0:59:15.120 --> 0:59:18.960
<v Speaker 2>was then dismembered. NBS the government insisted had no knowledge

0:59:18.960 --> 0:59:22.760
<v Speaker 2>of any of this. Subsequent investigations and reporting had revealed

0:59:22.800 --> 0:59:25.880
<v Speaker 2>that one member of the negotiation team was a coroner

0:59:26.120 --> 0:59:29.880
<v Speaker 2>explicitly hired to dismembered mister Koshogi's corpse after he was killed,

0:59:30.000 --> 0:59:32.800
<v Speaker 2>which would suggest they never wanted to take him alive, Right,

0:59:33.160 --> 0:59:35.400
<v Speaker 2>you don't bring a coroner along if you think you're

0:59:35.440 --> 0:59:37.200
<v Speaker 2>going to get this guy out of the building alive.

0:59:37.280 --> 0:59:39.600
<v Speaker 3>Who among us was like, we just want to we

0:59:39.800 --> 0:59:42.960
<v Speaker 3>just want to talk to him. Oh damn it. We

0:59:43.040 --> 0:59:43.880
<v Speaker 3>dismembered him.

0:59:44.320 --> 0:59:50.080
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, ah fuck yeah, yeah, yep, good god. So we

0:59:50.160 --> 0:59:52.400
<v Speaker 2>don't know exactly what went down in the room, but

0:59:52.440 --> 0:59:54.120
<v Speaker 2>we have a pretty good idea and all of the

0:59:54.160 --> 0:59:57.720
<v Speaker 2>evidence shows mister Koshogi was assassinated, dismembered, and disposed of

0:59:57.760 --> 0:59:59.560
<v Speaker 2>by a team that had been sent to Turkey to

0:59:59.600 --> 1:00:03.120
<v Speaker 2>do ja that all credible experts believe Mohammad and Salmon

1:00:03.240 --> 1:00:06.040
<v Speaker 2>gave the orders. And that's kind of where we leave

1:00:06.120 --> 1:00:08.240
<v Speaker 2>things off. There's more to say, I mean, there's a

1:00:08.240 --> 1:00:11.120
<v Speaker 2>lot more to get into the Trump years and stuff,

1:00:11.120 --> 1:00:14.760
<v Speaker 2>but these are the broad strokes of how he came

1:00:14.800 --> 1:00:18.000
<v Speaker 2>to be where he is right Our current president has

1:00:18.040 --> 1:00:20.200
<v Speaker 2>even broken with the conclusions of his own CIA to

1:00:20.320 --> 1:00:23.440
<v Speaker 2>insist that NBS is probably innocent. And I don't know,

1:00:23.600 --> 1:00:26.040
<v Speaker 2>do we trust the CIA or do we trust Donald Trump?

1:00:26.080 --> 1:00:26.280
<v Speaker 6>Here?

1:00:26.360 --> 1:00:30.640
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? Yeah, no, it's just a real like you've identified

1:00:30.640 --> 1:00:33.360
<v Speaker 3>a bastard, but it really resonates of like the other

1:00:33.760 --> 1:00:36.320
<v Speaker 3>all the people who fucking are doing business with this

1:00:36.400 --> 1:00:39.400
<v Speaker 3>guy and being like yeah, it's great there. It's just like, oh,

1:00:39.600 --> 1:00:41.480
<v Speaker 3>fuck all those people.

1:00:42.120 --> 1:00:46.840
<v Speaker 2>Yep, yep, yep, Because you know, the tempo of operations

1:00:46.880 --> 1:00:48.880
<v Speaker 2>in Yemen with Saudi Arabia is a lot lower than

1:00:48.920 --> 1:00:52.600
<v Speaker 2>it was, but the damage from the peak of operations

1:00:52.800 --> 1:00:55.920
<v Speaker 2>was catastrophic. Per an article and Genocide Watch, in twenty

1:00:55.960 --> 1:01:00.200
<v Speaker 2>twenty one, Saudi strikes have directly killed over two twelve

1:01:00.200 --> 1:01:03.200
<v Speaker 2>thousand civilians. Only half of the hospitals continue to operate.

1:01:03.440 --> 1:01:06.200
<v Speaker 2>Saudi naval blockades have cut off food and supplies. Thousands

1:01:06.240 --> 1:01:09.440
<v Speaker 2>of children have died of starvation. A cholera epidemic afflicted

1:01:09.440 --> 1:01:12.480
<v Speaker 2>eight hundred thousand civilians and killed thousands. Eighty percent of

1:01:12.520 --> 1:01:15.840
<v Speaker 2>the population depends on humanitarian relief. The Many Archive and

1:01:15.920 --> 1:01:18.920
<v Speaker 2>Oxvan report that the Saudi led coalition has systematically destroyed

1:01:18.960 --> 1:01:22.720
<v Speaker 2>one hundred and thirty bridges essential for delivery of humanitarian aid.

1:01:22.960 --> 1:01:25.760
<v Speaker 2>Whothies have also prevented food aid from reaching populations and

1:01:25.840 --> 1:01:28.200
<v Speaker 2>areas they control. At least two hundred and thirty three

1:01:28.200 --> 1:01:35.800
<v Speaker 2>thousand civilians have died in yemen Civil war. Right so cool, horrific.

1:01:35.560 --> 1:01:39.560
<v Speaker 3>Not good? Person. I will not be subscribing to The

1:01:39.560 --> 1:01:40.280
<v Speaker 3>Wall City.

1:01:40.880 --> 1:01:44.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, sorry, no no, And I won't listen to his

1:01:44.440 --> 1:01:45.720
<v Speaker 2>podcast when it comes out.

1:01:46.120 --> 1:01:49.640
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. I was surprised because you talk about all these

1:01:49.680 --> 1:01:51.760
<v Speaker 3>people who are just getting pale on money sitting around.

1:01:51.800 --> 1:01:55.520
<v Speaker 3>I was like, surely a lot of podcasts, Yeah, a

1:01:55.560 --> 1:01:57.640
<v Speaker 3>lot of terrible podcasts.

1:01:57.800 --> 1:02:00.720
<v Speaker 2>Call it the Southcast. You know you got a right there.

1:02:01.080 --> 1:02:02.320
<v Speaker 3>Bam, you did it.

1:02:02.880 --> 1:02:07.480
<v Speaker 2>M well, bam, gotta plug anything.

1:02:08.080 --> 1:02:14.440
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, okay, uh uh oh uh gamefully unemployed.

1:02:14.480 --> 1:02:19.320
<v Speaker 3>That's the podcast network I co run with Tom Ryman,

1:02:19.560 --> 1:02:23.640
<v Speaker 3>and we talk about movies and TV and and and

1:02:23.920 --> 1:02:28.680
<v Speaker 3>you know, stuff like that The X Files. I am

1:02:28.720 --> 1:02:31.480
<v Speaker 3>the head writer of Some More News, which is a

1:02:31.720 --> 1:02:35.240
<v Speaker 3>you know, it's like a news show on the YouTube. Uh.

1:02:35.280 --> 1:02:38.960
<v Speaker 3>And that's it for now, maybe more in the future.

1:02:39.200 --> 1:02:43.960
<v Speaker 3>Someday I will be able to say other things. That's it.

1:02:44.080 --> 1:02:48.880
<v Speaker 2>Excellent? Cool, Well, everybody say other things with us and

1:02:48.960 --> 1:02:53.000
<v Speaker 2>to yourself and go away. The episode's done, Get out

1:02:53.040 --> 1:02:54.280
<v Speaker 2>of here, m HM.

1:02:58.120 --> 1:03:01.160
<v Speaker 1>Behind the Bastard is a production Zone Media. For more

1:03:01.200 --> 1:03:04.800
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1:03:04.960 --> 1:03:07.720
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