WEBVTT - The Riyadh Comedy Festival 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:04.880 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:11.160 Welcome to a very special episode of It Could Happen Here, 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:16.680 reporting live from the sunny beaches of Riad. I'm Garrison 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.560 Davis this episode joined by Mia Wong, James Stout and 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.759 presenting our special report, Robert Evans. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.000 I am so happy to talk about our favorite time 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.600 of the year, which is of course the Riod Comedy Festival, 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:32.960 which occurs from September twenty sixth to October ninth. 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:34.840 It's the highlight of my year each year. 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.720 Ye happy to say all of Cool Zone will be 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:44.600 there performing in Riod, immediately getting arrested. It's gonna be 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.640 really good, very much excited, like all of your comedy favorites. 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.640 Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, asas End. Sorry, we will be 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.560 getting paid hundreds of thousands or over a million dollars 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:03.560 to pretend that the Saudi regime does not execute dissidence reporters, 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:08.559 civil rights activists, whoever, and doesn't run a torture prison. 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:09.319 Yeah. 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:11.680 So that that's what's happening this week. There's been a 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.400 big backlash against a bunch of very prominent comedians. 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.520 Louis c k. It looks like a mix of. 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:26.040 Guy Okay, not surprised David Chappelle. I'm surprised that old 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:28.200 David Chappelle would do this, but I'm not surprised that 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:29.520 current David Chappelle would do this. 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.080 Bilbert is disappointing. Bilbert is disappointing that one hurts. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.280 Moe Amer, who is a Palestinian American comedian who lives 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.640 in Houston, has also agreed to go to Riad and 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:41.440 form not great. 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.839 Comrade Shane Gillis declined the offer. 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:46.160 Yeah shee. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.920 Gillis said yes and then said no. Let's be real 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.240 fucking clear on what Shane Gillis did. Okay, I believe 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:54.880 he's the one that said yes and then said no. 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.560 You get you get a variety of responses from people 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.800 who were invited to this fucking thing. And I'll make 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.200 it clear kind of where my moral line stands. I 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.880 don't actually believe it's inherently wrong to perform inside the 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.639 bounds of any country. It kind of depends on what 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:12.440 you're doing and how you do it, and this is 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:14.160 the wrong way to do it, because these are not 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.280 just people. If someone had just shown up at a 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.120 nightclub in Saudi Arabia to do a stand up set, 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:21.800 I don't particularly care about that, even though there are 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.000 lesma jest laws, Like I wouldn't care if someone did 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.280 a stand up comedy set that couldn't make fun of 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.160 the King of Thailand, right, which is a crime in Thailand. 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:29.480 Yeah. 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:32.600 You know, people perform in parts of the world that 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.720 have different or bad laws. The US has bad laws. 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.160 We do bad things. I don't think it's inherently evil 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.880 to just perform at a random club there, which is 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:42.880 not what the people who are performing at the Odd 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.400 Comedy Festival are doing. This whole convention is being put 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.400 on by a guy named Turkey, I'll shake. Turkey is 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.160 the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, which is a 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.519 Saudi government department. He grew up with Mohammad Ben Salmon 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.800 playing League of Legends, and it's kind of like key 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.840 to Ben Salmon's planned makes Saudi Arabia cool to like 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:06.200 bring it into the global entertainment and like social network 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.520 without modernizing its laws or allowing people to, you know, 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.240 make fun of Mohammed Ben Salmon or his friends. For 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.600 an idea of the kind of dude who hired Bill 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:16.760 Burr and all of these other guys and paid them 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.600 so much money. There is an entire wing of the 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.280 all Higher prison called the Tutu Wing, which references all 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.440 Shake's nickname Tutu, where prisoners that he specifically pointed out, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.000 often people who made fun of him or made jokes 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.680 that he did not appreciate, are put in tortured. This 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.600 guy has an entire torture prison named after him. That 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.040 is who's writing checks to fucking Pete Davidson, whose dad 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:45.120 died in Night eleven. Ah fuck, it's fucking shocking the 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.680 fact that Pete Davidson is at this thing, and he 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.520 has been He's been like questioned about it, and his answer, basically, 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:53.160 I'll say this for Pete, was basically like, yeah, but 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.200 there's a lot of money, right. And I'm separating in 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.680 my head to a degree. I think it's bad to 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:03.120 take money from the Saudi government to do something like 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:05.520 this that is being used to like whitewash their human 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:07.800 rights record to make them look like a cool part 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:12.119 of global society, even as they this week executed another journalist. 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.120 I think that's bad. I think it's worse if you're 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.400 someone who stood for something. This doesn't change my opinion 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.840 about THEO Vaughn, who sucks and it's like, yeah, he'll 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.840 take money from Saudi Arabia. He's a huge asshole. I'm 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.560 not surprised, right, And there's some other guys in this 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.160 that I'm not necessarily like shocked about. 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.800 Did you see Theovon's beef with Ice this week? 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.200 Oh? Does theovon have beef with Ice this week? 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:37.640 Yeah? 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.480 They use video of him without his consent in one 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:41.680 of their marketing videos. 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:43.599 Yeah. Great so. 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.560 Jim Jeffries on August one on Theovon's podcast to talk 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.120 about agreeing to do this show, and he said one 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:52.640 reporter was killed by the government. Unfortunate, but not a 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.800 fucking hill that I'm gonna die on, and argued that 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.800 freedom of speech machines like himself would do good by, like, 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.560 you know, making jokes in Saudi Arabia and key in 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.880 the men on the freedom of speech thing. Basically, it'll 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:08.920 be a net positive for freedom if I go speak 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.719 at this thing. And then the funniest possible follow up, 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.880 he was removed from the festival lineup because he acknowledged 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:20.120 that they killed a reporter and you can't even do 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:24.080 that on your own fucking podcast or fucking theo vod's 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.360 goddamn podcast. I want to play a video clip of 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.159 Tim Dillon, because Tim Dillon is another guy who agreed 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.520 to show up and perform at this this fucking nightmare event. 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.520 And Dylan is why we know kind of how much 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:39.560 money is on the table at this thing, because he 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:41.760 has said that he was paid three hundred and seventy 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.360 five thousand. He was offered three hundred and seventy five 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.800 thousand for one performance to be there. He said that 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.400 kind of the lowest number people were being offered was 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.960 about one hundred and fifty thousand, and the most like 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.839 highly paid people were being offered up to one point 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.680 six million dollars. So I mean it's possible see people 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.680 were geting more than that, but I'm guessing that's closer 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:07.360 to like where the Bill Burr's than the Dave Chappelle's 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.440 you are getting right like in the one point six million. 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.679 So these guys were offered an insane amount of money. 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:17.160 And Tim Dillon went on and like talked about this 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.680 on a podcast, talked about like why he agreed to 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.400 do it, and defended and it's very funny. He like 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.039 brought up like slavery in Saudi Arabia because Saudi Arabia 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.600 has slaves, as a way to like to segue into 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:33.840 a defense of why it's fine for him to do this, 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:35.600 and this is just one of the funniest things I've 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:36.080 ever heard. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:42.560 Well, they have slaves, then they kill everyone. Hey hey, hey, hey, heyy. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:51.880 Get over it. Get over it? So what, so what 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.480 they have slaves? So what. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.960 My friend, I not a friend, somebody I don't even know. 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.279 I bumped them and Tribeca and he goes, I would 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.039 never do that because I don't want to interact with slaves. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:07.400 I'm like, well why not. 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:15.680 They'd be deferential, right, I mean, I imagine the slaves 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.400 in those countries are good at what they do. 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.400 Okay, so that's that's the clip I just wanted to. 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:27.520 One of the most Yeah, and it got him fired 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.080 from the show. He's good bending them, he's big, like 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.360 slavery is not so bad, and he's still got fired. 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.640 That's that's like, Yeah, it's nuts. 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:39.960 Oh my god, Like. 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:41.480 It's really bad. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.360 To cleanse our minds of whatever that was. Here's an 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:57.800 ad break. Okay, we're back, Robert. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.640 The degree to which everyone involved in that has just 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.080 nuked whatever credibility they had is shocking. I want to 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:08.640 read you a quote from Bill Burr in January of twenty. 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:09.480 Ten to make me sad. 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:11.440 This is from a set he did at the time. 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.840 This him talking about Beyonce. She's out there singing about 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:16.440 girl power, telling you to put a ring on it, 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:17.080 all that crap. 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:17.880 And then what she does. 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:19.520 She takes a million bucks to go sing at some 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.240 private party for Kaddafi's kid, Momar Kadaffi, you know, the 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.160 guy who's been blowing stuff up and running a dictatorship forever. Like, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:26.920 what the hell You're gonna jet off to Saint Bart 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.920 shake your ass for some terrorist dictator's family, pawking a million, 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.480 and then go back to preaching about empowerment. Come on, man, 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.160 that's the hypocrisy of this whole thing. These celebrities, they'll 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.240 take any gig if the check's big enough. It's like, Oh, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:39.920 I'm all about the people, until some crazy dictator weaves 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.200 a stack of cash and then it's where's my private jet? 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:43.160 It's ridiculous. 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.400 This nuts, Yes, Bill, it is. This sucks. 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:48.480 This sucks to be a Bill Bard defender for you. 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.480 I notice, truly the first, the first, the first actual 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:53.960 stain on Bill Bear's legacy. 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:57.320 It's a very good comedian, that's what her remarkable. Fucking 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:01.120 stain cold comedians are evil. It's just it's that easy. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.440 He addressed, it's you know, part of it is that 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.720 and if all. Unfortunately, I kind of think the response 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.640 of some of the scumbags in comedy has been fair 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.000 with it. Just like, man, it was too much money. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.160 It's just a shitload of money. Like I'll do fucked 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:14.760 up shit for a crazy amount of money, and it's 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.359 like that's bad, but at least you're honest. Bill's response 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:20.839 to this was like, it was great to experience that 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:22.200 part of the world, to be part of the first 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.720 comedy festival over there in Saudi Arabia. The royals loved 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:26.839 the show. Everybody one was happy. The people that were 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:28.680 doing the festival were thrilled. The comedians that I've been 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:30.800 talking to are saying, dude, you can feel that the 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.400 audience wanted it. They wanted to see real stand up comedy. 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.280 It was a mind blowing experience. Definitely top three experiences 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:37.679 I've had. I think it's going to lead to a 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.480 lot of positive things now. He did talk a little 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.000 bit about like the rules that they had to bye bye, 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.720 and said that like when they were first handing around contracts, 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.079 he pushed back and was like or people pushed back, 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.079 or like comedians didn't, were like, you can't have all 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.480 these restrictions, and that they whittled them down to just 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.960 a couple of things, which Bill sums up as don't 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.920 make fun of Royal's religion right now, as pointed out 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.280 by the fact that Tim Dillon got canceled for talking 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.600 positively about slavery and the Kingdom, there were more restrictions 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:10.640 than that. I do want to read from a Hollywood 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.680 Reporter article talking about like Bill's response to this, because 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.480 it gets even worse than what I've read already. Bill 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.040 first described going to the island country of Bahrain, which 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.360 is more socially liberal than Saudi Arabia, where a customs 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.800 agent immediately clocked his anxiety about doing stand up in 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:25.640 the region and gave him grief about it. When I 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.040 was landing in Bahrain, like I'm fucking nervous, right, and 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.120 then the agent says, you tell jokes about the Middle East, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:31.680 you think you're going to come over here and get beheaded. 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.640 Right After a successful show in Bahrain, Burr was at 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.120 a bar where he was watching interactions among locals and decided, 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.880 I'm like, they're just like us. I don't speak the language, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.120 but I get it. When he flew to Saudi Arabia, 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.040 Burr's nervousness crept back, but he was struck by the 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.520 amount of local Western influence. You think everyone's going to 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:48.280 be screaming death to America and they're going to have 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.280 fucking machetes and want to chop my head off, right, 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.079 because this is what I've been fed about that part 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:53.400 of the world. I thought this place was going to 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:54.800 be really tense, and I'm thinking, like, is that a 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:56.800 Starbucks next to a Pieza Hut, next to a Burger 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:57.960 King next to McDonald's. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:10:58.920 They've got a fucking. 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.280 Chilis And yes, man, they have stores in the Middle 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:03.920 East you can buy and have. 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.720 Restaurants that specific combination of countries like the Saudis. The 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.880 reason the current government of Raid is in power is 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.959 because the Saudis rolled tanks across the border to cross 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.720 the uprising. There were twenty eleven like hideous. 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:21.720 There's so much that's fucked up just being like, well 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.280 to prepare for abiding by the laws of the fucking 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:24.920 royal family. 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:25.720 Of Saudi Arabia. 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.040 I went to Bahrain like like that, They're not. 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.760 The same place, no, Like, yeah, I wanted to check 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.720 out some brown Muslim people. Turns out that people like 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:36.800 that seems to be the gist of what he's saying, 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:38.040 and they like pizza too. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:38.640 Fuck me. 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.640 You could go to again like Iraq and perform in 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.040 fucking uh. You could go to an ideal and it's nice, 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.079 and it's nice, and you're not going to be performing 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.640 at the behest of the fucked up government. Right, You'll 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:53.960 just be performing in a country with the fucked up government. 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.360 And there is a difference. Right, I'm not angry at 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.000 the idea that some rando might like perform at a 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.439 nightclub in Saudi Arabia. The problem is that you're performing 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.040 at the behest of the Saudi government, at the behest 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:05.760 of the regime. 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:07.120 Yeah, that's a different thing. 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:09.480 I do think there's an argument for like, well, people 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.600 in countries with fucked up governments deserve to laugh. That 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.839 doesn't mean you have to take the money from their 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.439 fucked up government and say nice things about their fucked 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.680 up government like Kevin Hart just did. Because Kevin Hart 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:23.760 was also a part of this show, and he posted 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.040 a video on TikTok talking about how fucking awesome Saudi 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.199 Royal Turkey Al Shake is and Turkey al Shak has 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.760 now been sharing that video on all of his social 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:37.679 media accounts, Like you're holding water for people for a 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.880 guy he was a wing in a torture prison named 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.080 after him, that crosses a line for me. You know, 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.200 when we're talking about entertainment, we're talking about being ad 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.120 support all this stuff. There's compromises that everyone makes in 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.560 this business. There's compromises in what company you fucking work with, 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.000 right Like, if you're talking about, you know, make it 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.240 a TV show for Amazon's TV division or Disney's you 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.960 know fucking streaming division, right, Well, there's there's a degree 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.560 of moral compromise there. And I think, depending on what 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.080 you're doing and whatnot, can be justified by the fact 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.280 that number one, like that's just the way television works. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.680 There's no working with anyone completely clean in a company 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.080 that has the ability to fund, you know, a production 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:21.520 like that, but taking money directly from the hands of 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.160 the guy with the torture prison, I think that crosses 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:25.960 a line. I think that crosses the line for a 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.360 free speech activist. It should across the line for Pete Davidson, 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:30.640 who's dad died at nine. 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:34.520 To eleven, but she's apparently not. That is a wild one. 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:36.280 That's the craziest one to. 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:41.400 Me, that Kate Davidson went over to Saudi Arabia. 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.000 Oh man, are you gonna what? It's just mom sit 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:45.680 on the scene. 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.640 Oh man, she's probably getting a lot of money if 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:48.680 she is, So it's fine. 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:49.800 It's fine. 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.160 I don't know like how much. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.600 And it is one of those things I get the 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:57.800 people who are like, okay, but you know, the US 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.200 is fucked up to and it is. And so if 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.480 somebody is getting paid directly by the Trump regime to 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.199 perform at the White House, I'd say, pretty fucked up. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.640 But like that doesn't mean it's immoral to perform at 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.200 like a nightclub in fucking Chicago, you know. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:13.440 Yeah, And none of us are going to Guantanamo Bay 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.280 to like entertain the fucking prison guards, right, Like. 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.040 Yeah, well, hopefully none of us will be going to 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:25.680 Guantanamo Bay for any reason. As long as we keep 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:38.560 playing these ads, we're back. 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.040 I want to talk about this from the Saudi perspective, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.160 because they have been doing really for the last half 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.520 a decade a fallout pr blitz. Right, We've seen this 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.040 in WWE. We've seen this with a whole bunch of 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.720 professional sports stuff, like most of the esports is run 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.080 out of the Sports World Cup in Saudi Arabia. Now, 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.400 like the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund just helped Jared Kushner 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.160 buy EA, right, just like one of the largest video 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.000 game companies in the world. Right, they've been you know, 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.760 they've been doing this sort of whole sportswashing strategy of 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.240 using these things to sort of normalize, normalize the regime. 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:15.800 And I think the actual genius of this, right was 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:19.440 not that you can buy legitimacy with like sports and 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.480 with comedians. The genius of it was that they were 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.000 able to control the backlash because they ensured the backlash 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:29.000 to it would be done by sports journalists and entertainment 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.920 journalists who don't know anything about the Saudis and thus 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.640 assumed that the Saudis were attempting to whitewash their you know, 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.720 horrific domestic human rights record, and they were to some extent, 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.680 But even focusing on the Saudis domestic human rights record 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:44.520 is a victory for the Saudist because it means that 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:46.680 nobody's talking about the stuff people were talking about last 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.440 decade when they talked about the Saudis, which was things like, 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.160 for example, the Sudanese child soldiers that they were deploying 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.600 in their warren Yemen, and these Sudanese child soldiers were 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.360 drawn from their connections bolstered by the UAE to the 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.680 Sudanese Appid Support Forces, a group that is almost entirely 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.080 composed of the militias who did the genocide in Darfour. 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.840 So these are the ground troops that they're deploying in Yemen. 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.880 Are Assudanese child soldiers drawn from the people who did 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.800 the genocide in Darfour in twenty eighteen, which was not 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.240 that long ago, like I remember twenty eighteen. So do 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.800 you statistically if you're listening to the show, they carried 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.160 out an airstrike on a school bus that killed twenty 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.000 six children, right, no one is talking about the air 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.560 strikes on funerals that they absolutely love to do, like, 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.000 for example, there was a huge one in twenty sixteen 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.120 where they killed one hundred and forty people in one 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.800 air strike, after which the area was described by a 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:40.880 rescue worker as a quote lake of blood. And this 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:43.600 has been the really successful thing about about the Saudi 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.960 specifically targeting sports and specifically targeting entertainment, is that the 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:51.080 people covering this do not know anything about Saudi Arabia, right. 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:52.760 And this is also partially what was going on Bill Burv, 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.800 because they're just racists or their attempt could do a backlash, 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.520 and they're trying to do a backlash with things like Okay, 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.160 they killed a journalist, which is really bad, right, But 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:06.240 like Jamal Kashoggi was one guy out of thousands and 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.760 thousands and thousands of people that they were killing and 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.439 are continuing to kill to this day in Yemen. 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:12.200 Right. 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:14.040 And this is one of the reasons people have been 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:15.720 able to get away with this, right, is that no 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:17.919 one has been walking up to them and going what 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.399 do you think about the Sudanese child soldiers? Because nobody 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.960 knows about any of that. And this is one of 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:24.840 the thing that I want to just say at the 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:26.520 end of this, which is I know for a fact 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.840 that journalists and editors listen to this show, and please, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.440 for the love of God, find someone who knows literally 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.600 anything about the Saudis war. And Yemen and have them 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.080 write this piece on sportswashing for you, literally anyone. This 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:41.560 is what this is what makes me insane about all 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.240 this coverage is that like, if you even a little 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.040 bit paid attention to what they were doing in the 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.639 twenty tens and what they're continuing to do now in Yemen, 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.080 you know about so many even I'm not even I'm 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.280 not even talking about the starvation genocide here. There are 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.280 so many things that they did, you know, And like 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.679 one of the common defenses is like, oh, like you know, 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:02.720 like we live in the US as a fucked up country, right, 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:05.679 Like who cares about authoritarianism? Just like I don't know, 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.320 it's hard to make that argument when it's about Sudanese 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:09.320 child soldiers. 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.400 Well, and it's just again, we're not pissed because some 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:17.679 guy performed at a nightclub in Riyad. It's it's that 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.400 you're taking money from the government to whitewash the government. 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.239 No, it's because they took money for the governments. All 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:24.800 of these, all of these things, all of these all 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:26.919 of like wwe like all of these sports events, these 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.200 are funded directly by the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, which 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:32.400 is the Wealth Fund of the Saudi government, the people 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.040 who were dropping bombs on school buses and sending child 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:37.560 soldiers to fight their warren gemmen. 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.800 Yeah, there has been some good reporting on sportswashing. I 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.440 would say, like Ian Trello's done some excellent stuff. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.280 The Guardian has a good article on this where they 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:51.000 really coalate some of like the very worst responses, written 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.359 by Seth Simon. So I liked that this does seem 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:56.960 to be blowing up. Hollywood Reporter's piece was pretty good too. 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.199 Hollywood Report to my friend with the editor of that 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.359 publication for years may have consistently done some stuff that 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.440 you wouldn't expect looking at the title of publication. 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:06.679 Yeah, I'm not going to be silly enough to be like, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:08.560 I think this is going to cost any of these 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:10.719 people their career because it's I don't think it is. 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.400 But it does seem to be causing them some embarrassment, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:15.760 So I don't know. 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.000 Yeah, I mean they get called out on it, shamed 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.439 like it's yeah, it's a pretty shameful thing to do. 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.679 It's a shameful thing to do. It's a bummer. 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.960 I wish people had not made these choices because man, 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:29.800 it's depressing. 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.000