Why “Kill The Bad Guys” Never Works - with MS NOW’s Ayman Mohyeldin

Lemonada. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually get on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus, ditch that where's my money feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart. Get wise. Visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. The American military actually spent a lot of time going around Saddam Hussein's old hometown. And putting up wanted dead or alive posters in Iraq. And it says, wanted dead or alive, $25 million reward. Call us with any information that can lead to his arrest. And then there's a tip line right there. You can email them. Yeah. Tips at orha.centcom.mil. Got it. So people in Tikrit who barely had any food or water or electricity. We're encouraged to. Open up their Yahoo email account. And email. And drop a tip to CENTCOM. Exactly. Look, a lot of news anchors aren't real journalists. They're just actors who play journalists on TV. Ayman Mohideen is not one of those anchors. He has spent years working as a war reporter. Literally on the ground. He's basically the Forrest Gump of recent Middle Eastern history. Popping up in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Egypt, and Ukraine. And in more recent years, he has been bringing that experience. From the field to the studio at MSNOW with a perspective that sees people in the Middle East as, you know, actual human beings and not just foreign policy issues. So I sat down with Ayman to talk about how America and American media tries to make sense of the Middle East. We really get into the just kill the bad guys narrative and why it keeps failing. The idea that you're just going to kill your way through a leadership and expect that to change the fundamental problems of any society has proven time and time again has not worked. Why coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conversation. Conflict has often been lopsided and not great. I think there are so many layers to covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that make it difficult for American journalists. And empathy and sympathy are probably two of them. And we look back at when the U.S. media lost its frickin' mind between 9-11 and the invasion of Iraq. Especially New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Well, suck on this. Why are you laughing? Hey, if you think that's an offensive metaphor for a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Wait until you see what Thomas does with a bubble. Conspiracy theories are flying about the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. An overwhelming amount of Americans online believe that the shooting was staged, fabricated to increase President Trump's approval ratings. Now, I read about this response on Ground News, which is today's sponsor. Ground News is an independent news platform that shows a breakdown. In the article, it says, It's not about eliminating bias completely, but it makes you aware of the potential biases of different publications. So you can consider them as you analyze an event or an issue. In one of the articles, Donald Trump maintained that the shooting was real and that the Epstein files were, quote, a Democrat hoax and are a criminal conspiracy designed to damage him. Right. This is one of the first times when I did not pick up on many differences in a story that could be attributed to political leanings. The right-leaning publications. They're saying the same thing as the left. Shit is weird. Let's cut through the noise together. Go to groundnews.com slash hustle and subscribe and get the 40% off unlimited access vantage plan, which breaks down to just five bucks a month with my discount. That's groundnews.com slash hustle. Just to kick things off, I want to say thank you for your service. You have been doing incredible, important work as a journalist for over 25 years now. And I just want to personally thank you for that. My pleasure. But I also want to thank you for some of your best work, which came out recently. And I'm. I'm talking about your full frontal GQ spread. Let's take a look. Amen. Tom Brokaw could never. Listen, the good thing I was going to tell you is very few people noticed that because my wife was standing next to me. And I think most of the attention. Yeah, all eyes were on her. All eyes were on her. Obviously. Amen. Another humble brag. He's married to a supermodel. He's over six feet tall. Life is good. L.I.G. Alhamdulillah. There we go. That's what we say in Islam. In interviews I've heard, is it true that you started your career as a journalist the moment Bush was inaugurated in January 2000? Is this true? Literally, the first day I walked into a newsroom as a desk assistant was George Bush's inauguration in 2001. January 20th, 2001. What was the newsroom like for you? Well, interestingly enough, the summer before 9-11 was a very what I would call journalistically boring summer. And I wasn't sure that I actually wanted to. Stay in journalism. It was, you know, shock attacks off of the coast of Florida and Carolina. They were not big international stories. I had this kind of like idea of wanting to be an international correspondent and I wasn't sure how I was going to get there. Okay. So at some point I was kind of like not really sure that journalism was for me, even though I've always wanted to be a journalism. But that kind of gave me a moment of pause. And then unfortunately 9-11 happened and the newsroom was not very diverse. In fact, one of the main reasons that I was able to kind of leapfrog some of my peers at the time was because I was the only one who spoke Arabic in the newsroom. And, you know, after 9-11, we launched a massive investigation into the 9-11 hijackers and trying to understand what happened. What was the intelligence saying? And so I was one of the few people in the entire news organization, let alone in the newsroom, who spoke Arabic and was kind of plucked off of being a desk assistant, which is an entry level job and put into the investigative unit to start working on these like very complex, deep stories into 9-11. And in fact, when the war started in Afghanistan. That's how I got sent overseas on my first assignment and started becoming a bit of a field producer. 9-11 happens, I'm in high school, the war on terror happens as I'm in high school, entering college, even into post-college. I'm consuming the news media, so me, my family, this is pre-WhatsApp, we're consuming the news media. I want to play two clips for you of the things that we were consuming at that time. The first is from Thomas Friedman a few months after the Iraq invasion in 2003, explaining why the invasion of Iraq was necessary. Let's take a look. We needed to go over there basically and take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble. And there was only one way to do it because part of that bubble said, "We've got you." This bubble is actually going to level the balance of power between us and you because we don't care about life. We're ready to sacrifice and all you care about are your stock options and your Hummers. And what we needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house from Basra to Baghdad and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand? You don't think we care about our open society? You think this bubble fantasy, we're just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this." Why are you laughing? Hey, he's on Charlie Rose and he thinks he's cooking. What are you laughing at? I mean, I don't even know where to begin with that. Start. Look, it's a completely arrogant worldview. It's a oversimplification of what was happening and an understanding of the region. It's a language that is deeply embedded in violence and the psychology of violence and the belief that only violence is. Violence is the way to communicate with other people. And it's the language of dominance, which is regardless of what we are about to do to you, you have to accept what it is that we are here to do to you. As he just said, we are coming to you from Basra to Baghdad and you're going to have to suck on this because we're about to light it up for you. And this notion that we won't protect ourselves by destroying your society is the framework. In which he's kind of like presenting this argument. He's like, we we are prepared to send our boys and girls to die to protect this, you know, worldview that we have, this idea that we have. And I think it's just it's just a grotesque use of language and oversimplification of what has actually been happening in the Middle East. I'm really glad you're saying that, because, look, is it offensive that he's cosigning a war that we didn't have to be a part of? Sure. But I am more offended at his abuse of the English language. Let's just take a quick look. Look at this, OK? This is a quote of what he was saying on Charlie Rose. We need to go over there basically and take out a very big stick. OK, so that's the first metaphor. OK, right in the heart of that world. Second metaphor in burst that bubble. Third metaphor. Same sentence. Now it's getting stranger. OK, because part of that bubble said so now the bubble has two parts. Amen. Are you following this? The bubble has to apparently these bubbles can split. OK, part of that bubble said in the bubble can talk. We've got you. The bubble. is actually going to level the balance of power so now the bubble is on a scale between us and you now amen from what i understand thomas friedman is a writer is that correct yes a pulitzer prize winner this is he's won the pulitzer prize yeah i mean for writing for writing for i don't know if i don't know for this specific piece but he definitely won it for writing yeah i mean let me just say this and i don't want to be bigoted here i don't want to channel some of the energy that he brought to charlie rose but goddamn this is america learn the fucking language let me ask you this you were in the newsroom in 2003 during this time and in all seriousness how much suck on this energy was in the newsroom at that time that's a really good question um look you know 9-11 was a traumatic moment for this country and so i think a lot of news organizations a lot of journalists saw themselves first and foremost americans and that america had just been attacked and so it was in a moment of vulnerability i don't agree with it but in a moment of vulnerability that i think a lot of news organizations felt the responsibility to be patriotic and you can debate what that means to be patriotic in an environment of war because that's a question that we deal with in this society all of the time are you allowed to criticize people in power should you be criticizing people in power but i do think that there was a line that was crossed right i think when you started seeing like american flag logos that were popping up i think in the language that was used the this type of argument for the sake of going to war all of those things um i think really raised very important questions as to whether or not the media was at the time objectively looking at what was about to happen in the middle east and say this is good or this is bad or simply go along with whatever the administration was going to put forth and as we saw unfortunately not just in afghanistan but two years later in the lead-up to the iraq war when the when the bush administration went out to make the case that iraq had weapons of mass destruction was somehow connected to 9-11 the media unfortunately failed miserably in holding uh powerful officials accountable and as a result of that administration officials that lied to the american public and led us into this costly war uh got away with it nobody was ever held accountable for the lies that were uh you know that were pushed out let's take a look at that in further detail so the second clip that i wanted to show you it's funny that you're saying this this actually comes from the bill moyer's documentary buying the war okay so the clip that we're about to watch and i'd love your your understanding of this as again someone who has not only covered the war in iraq the war in afghanistan but also many of your colleagues worked in the white house press office or covered the white house at the time so this is from the bill moyer's doc buying the war this is march 6 2003 two weeks before the invasion of iraq two weeks before he will order america to war president bush calls a press conference to make the case for disarming saddam hussein at least a dozen times during this press conference he will invoke 9 11 and al-qaeda to justify a preemptive attack on a country that has not attacked america mr president if you decide but the white house press corps will ask no hard questions tonight about those claims listen to what the president says this is a scripted thank you mr president scripted sure enough the president's staff has given him a list of reporters to call on let's see here elizabeth gregory april did you have a question or did i call upon you cold okay i'm sure you do have a question he sort of giggled and laughed and the reporters sort of laughed and i don't know if it's not embarrassment for him or embarrassment for them because they still continue to play along after his question was done they all shot up their hands and pretended they had a chance of being called on president how is your faith guiding you my faith sustains me because i pray daily i pray for guidance so what in the north korea is going on right now i mean the way they all raise their hands in unison at the same time take me through what we just watched here in this bill moyers documentary so i think it's important to kind of separate two things right one is the process and the decorum and i think that generally speaking you know the institution of the white house tries to maintain these types of national press conferences in a bit of a decorum so they don't descend into shouting matches right and maybe we expect that to be a little bit more robust but in a situation like that nationally televised you're trying to kind of bring a little bit decorum so i don't think that necessarily having and i'm pretty sure the idea of questions being submitted to the white house is a non-starter it normally doesn't work like that usually what happens is there are reporters they say they want to ask questions and so to keep the process and the flow at a baseline level of respect where everyone gets a chance to ask a question he'll call on people and there's also a little bit of seniority there there are people who've been covering the white house for many years they represent national organizations they represent agencies and so i think there's a little bit of a decorum to the process but the second part of that which is the question what do you want your white house correspondents and white house reporters to ask the president united states are you trying to humanize him are you trying to get into his psyche are you trying to understand the power and the responsibility that he has to the american people and what he's about to embark on and so are you basically saying that asking him about his faith is probably the wrong thing to do at this point before they invade i think that would be the wrong place to do that type of if i was running a profile about and i think understanding the psychology of a president is important i think if you're about to interview the president or do a press conference in which the national media is watching i don't care about his you know personal psychology i care about his responsibility to the american people having said that if i was a if i was a reporter who writes for life magazine or lifestyle magazine and i wanted to do a profile yeah i would ask him about his faith and i would ask him is there you know is there tension between his faith and the legality of the word that he's going to do i mean there's all kinds of questions that you can ask about it yeah that's not the venue that i would have used to ask that question well you know what's crazy is some of those faces i recognize from when i did the white house correspondence right so they're pretty prominent journalists very much very much you know for me that type of question that was asked on march 6 2003 that's the equivalent of the 2026 hey george w bush what is your get ready with me in the morning that's the grwm of questions by the way when you're about to invade iraq i mean it's kind of insane that's what i mean am i crazy for thinking that absolutely not okay absolutely now do you think it's weird that people who push for the iraq war like thomas friedman bill crystal and david from not only still have a platform but they're widely respected by democrats yes they should not be they should not be because i think when you get so many things wrong and you make a case for war that is based on lies and grounded in effectively illegal action um there should be accountability there should be accountability you should not be promoted and elevated and given a bigger and wider platform when i watch footage like this it feels very similar to what's happening with the trump administration now so when there's pearl clutching in regards to orange man bad orange man is violating norms when it comes to coverage of the white house is that particularly new or has it been happening for a long time it has been happening for a long time but i think it is happening differently now it is happening in a much more intense way the administration has figured out that it can this administration has figured out that it can manipulate uh journalists in a much more effective way so you know you take for example what is happening at the pentagon the pentagon wants favorable coverage of its actions in the war so what do they do they make sure that journalists are willing to kind of sign uh agreements uh or rules that they have to comply with in terms of the coverage you look at what's happened at the white house we've gotten rid of a lot of journalists the white house warrants sycophants basically so they've brought in all these influencers and far-right bloggers and you know all kinds of like social media personalities and when you watch the types of questions that they're asking it's just basically you know either maga talking points or cult-like worship of donald trump how do you sleep at night you know how do you do it you're such an amazing guy uh why do the democrats not like you or the ufc fight where's the fight going to be exactly where the where's the fight going to be what part of the lawn is going to be on exactly and so when you when you have this kind of like breakdown of the responsibility and the roles of journalists in these very important positions whether it was in 2003 or whether it's in 2026 it's the same through line the tactics are different and the manipulation is different but sadly it's the same type of behavior and it probably predates a lot of what's happening in the media right now and it's probably predates television probably predates broadcast probably 100 years ago when it was just print or radio there was probably some relationship between people in power and journalists in which access was traded for favorable questions or favorable coverage um and the and the kind of revolving door that exists sometimes between power and media is you know deeply problematic as someone who obviously has not been doing this 25 plus years but i'm sure you had older advisors and mentors what are the counterweights to combat this type of quid pro quo journalistic coverage i mean i think that one of the you know most important piece of advice is that i was always given when i was coming up into a newsroom and i started out as a producer so i worked with a lot of you know uh established journalists was what are you in the service of what are you doing this for who are the people that your journalism is meant to service right and i think when you constantly keep that question as your north star you become less intimidated by people in power you care less about whether you have access or not um you care less less about the prestige of the position and what you want to compromise in order to have that prestige. And there's no doubt that media has a lot of, you know, prestige to it in this country, certainly. So I think when you have a very clear North Star of what it is that you are in service of, I think it helps you guide you through the pitfalls of some of the things that we sometimes criticize the media for. And I want to be clear, I mean, you know, the media is a very big institution in this country and is very diverse. And, you know, there's no doubt that you can cherry pick a few examples and highlight some of the structural problems that exist in the media. But by far and large, the work that is done on a local level, on a national level, on an international level by reporters is tremendous. And we wouldn't have a healthy functioning society if we didn't have the media institutions that we have right now. I mean, they need to be better, but we also wouldn't be where we are if we didn't have what we have. No, no. And it sounds like what has motivated you is your opportunity to be a part of the media. Operating from a place of moral clarity. I try to. I try to. I mean, I try to have a North Star that the career that I've been blessed to have has been in service of trying to foster a better understanding between a part of the world that America is heavily invested in and a part of the world that it sadly does not understand. And a lot of that is by luck. I'm from a part of the world. I grew up with one foot in each part of the world. So I was able to kind of bridge that divide between, you know, newsrooms, that wanted to understand the Middle East and a Middle East that was being sadly misunderstood into America. Can I talk to you about the war reporting that you've done? Yeah. OK. So from my understanding, there's two types of war reporters that I've seen. First, you have the people who want to shine a light on the devastation of war and the lives that it affects around the world, perhaps showing that we're all human beings and our humanity is what unites us all. Then there's a second type of war reporter, which is a person who wants to wear a flak jacket and is really into Call of Duty. Does this track with you? Your experience that it's usually that type of dichotomy? It's not that it's not that clear of a dichotomy. I mean, I think journalists look again. There's a difference between broadcast journalists. Broadcast journalists are their own unique species, right? Because the TV is on them and your cameras are on them. So they are there is an element of performance for TV. So let's be very honest about that. Yeah. You weren't asked to thirst trap like this when you were a war correspondent. Not at all. You had to be buttoned up literally and metaphorically. Literally and metaphorically. I was also in places where you could not be walking around like that. Right. So the short answer to your question is there is an element, unfortunately, of television that you are capturing something on TV. And so you want to capture it in a. I don't know what the right word for it is, but in a compelling way. And sometimes the people get carried away with what they what they do. It can be a little bit theatrical. But I do think for the most part, journalists who risk their lives to go into war zones do it with a good sense of purpose and that they are risk literally risking their lives to try to shine a light on a part of the world in which people are suffering and oftentimes people are dying. I want to talk about that window in your life from 2003 to 2015. You were reporting from Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Ukraine and Gaza. Now, look, I have unloaded the clip on your colleagues. But why did you get into that work? And why did you put your life on the line that 10 plus year run? So it was, you know, a part of it was the circumstance of the events that were happening, right? I mean, the last 25 years of the Middle East have been transformative. So when I when I was coming up as a journalist, because of 9-11, you had from 2001 to 2003, the Afghanistan, the beginning of the Afghanistan war, then in 2003 to 2006, you had the Iraq war. Then you had in 2006, the first Israel-Lebanon war, then 2008 to 2010, you had the first Gaza war. 2011, you had the beginning of the Arab Spring, then you had the Syrian revolution, the Libyan revolution, the Yemeni revolution, then had the rise of ISIS in 2014. Then you had the war in Gaza of 2014. So there are circumstances that I couldn't control. But as a journalist who was committed to covering the region, it was just nonstop war, destruction, revolution, uprisings. And I was just very committed to covering it. I was very, you know, I think that most journalists who put their lives on the line, fundamentally ask themselves one question at one point in their career, is my life worth what I am doing now? And that is the question that I ask myself. a question that you ask at certain points in your career. You may revisit it when you start a family. You may revisit it as you get older. You may revisit it if you slow down a step and you realize that your body's changing and you can't deal with the adrenaline as much as you used to be. But for the fundamental question of, is your life worth what you're trying to show? It is something that most journalists answer at one point in their life. And if you're committed to it, you stay with it. I know people who are my age now who are still doing it. And it's not that I wouldn't do it again. It's just that I'm in a different stage in my life, different obligations, different responsibilities professionally. How did you get your dad to be okay with it? Because I get asked this dumb question all the time. They're like, how did you get your dad to be okay with you doing comedy? It's like, dude, I'm doing a weekend at Rooster Teeth Feathers Comedy Club in Sunnyvale, California. That is very different than you covering a war in Syria. I mean, I think they saw in me a commitment that knew I was really motivated to do it. I think they understood the importance of the job. I mean, they were very afraid of it. I'm not going to pretend that they weren't afraid. I'm not going to pretend that they didn't try to discourage me at certain points. But I think they always helped me try to assess risk and assess whether or not I was taking risks for the right reasons and whether or not those risks were measured. Support comes from Wise, the smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. Fed up with losing out when you send money abroad with your everyday bank? 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Energy for everything. Visit TXU.com for more information. Rep number 1-0-0-0-4. Now, you reported from Iraq from 2003 to 2005. Now, obviously, there are many things that I could talk about, many upsetting things I could talk about, but I want to address one of the dumbest things. I recently went on eBay, and I bought a set of vintage cards. These are the 2003 Iraqi Most Wanted playing cards. These were being sold during the war in Iraq. Now, apparently, all but three people in this deck have been captured or killed. Is this weird? Is this weird that I'm not allowed to play these cards? I had to buy a pack of terrorism trading cards. Is this what we have to do to explain things to the American public? This is very weird. I'll tell you something, though. That was made for American soldiers, which is even more interesting. And this deck of cards is one example of what we provide to soldiers and Marines out in the field with the faces of the individuals and what their role is. Yes, you can get that now, and they're available. But this was something that the Pentagon did. In the lead up to the war, and basically handed those out to soldiers to kind of be on the lookout in Iraq for these types of. That's weird that a soldier wanted to flip it. He's like, look, I have no use for this because I bought this off eBay. I mean, what do you find particularly weird about it? There's an element of gamification of war in the way these things are presented. So I think that, you know, there is a lot of propaganda in war. Right. And when governments embark on leading a country to war, you want to try and convince your public and your narrative of a just war. You want to make your soldiers believe that what you're about to embark on is a just war. And you want to try to make it as simple as possible to see the other side, not as humans, but as enemies. And if you can reduce them to playing cards, if you can strip away anything to do with who these people are, why they're in this situation, whether they are ministers or officials or ordinary people, it becomes easier for you as a soldier, as a society, to accept killing them, to accept violence against them. - Turn them into Marvel villains. - Magneto, Red Skull, Loki. - Right. - Green Goblin, capture, kill, problem solved. - Exactly, exactly. - What's your reaction to that as someone who covers this in the media? And how did you respond to some of your colleagues that overly simplified it into a trading card-like situation? - Well, sadly, the problem hasn't been solved. You've killed leaders and leaders are interchangeable. I mean, you're literally seeing this play out right now in Iran, right? No playing cards in Iran, but the narrative of we've killed their supreme leader only for a new supreme leader to emerge. Or whether it is we've killed the top 40 Iranian generals and scientists only for a new generation of leaders to emerge. So the idea that you're just going to kill your way through a leadership and expect that to change the fundamental problems of any society has proven time and time again, has not worked. So whether you are a member of the media or a member of the media class who advocates for that type of policy, or you're a politician who advocates for that type of policy, I simply say, it doesn't work. History has shown us it doesn't work. People who study this have told us it doesn't work. And you have to find another solution other than just simply bombing your way through it. - Most Americans have forgotten about Iraq. That was like- - Sadly. - Five wars ago. But how did our interventions impact what's happening on the ground in Iraq today? - I mean, we decimated a state. We destroyed its institutions. We fractured the country ethnically. We allowed that country to exist. We allowed it to exist. We allowed that country to descend into civil war. And that bred a generation of terrorists that went on to attack Europe and the United States as a result of ISIS. That faction of a group then spilled over into Syria, destabilized Syria and led to violence and civil war in that country. Those two things combined led to millions of refugees displaced across the region that we're still suffering from around the world as a result of that. Economically, it's suppressed a part of the world that historically had been very vibrant and had at one point thriving culture, economy, science, trade. All of that has been set back decades as a result of America's invasion of war in 2003. And not to mention the damage that it has done to American soldiers, to American lives, to American treasure, and also to our understanding of rule of law and accountability. I say this all the time because no American official was ever held accountable for the lies that they led us into war based on. I mean, American officials lied. We know that they lied. They fabricated all kinds of excuses. And no American official was ever held accountable for that. - What type of accountability are you talking about? - Well, for starters, public accountability. I mean, I think that we never had a reckoning in this country about what led us into that war. Who are the officials who drummed up these excuses? You know, there was a 9/11 commission after the 9/11 attacks, but we never carried out such a commission in the 2003 war that pinpointed and said, this was the failure in the American political system that allowed for this type of mistake to happen. And again, I bring up a very important point here. When you think of American presidents and their ability to launch wars, they have to, under American law and the constitution, get authorization from Congress. Now there are certain loopholes that allow American presidents to conduct war for short periods of time, like 60 days. But fundamentally you have to go to Congress, which is the most deliberative body in America to say, we want to go to war, provide us the funds and the means to declare that war. And what we're seeing right now is America and presidents using the authorization for the use of military force, AUMF, that was passed in 2001 in the wake of 9/11. - Right after the attacks, the Bush administration demanded from Congress the legal authorization to use military force against those they deemed responsible for the attack. The Senate soon approved the authorization for use of military force. In the House, it passed 420 to one. The lone dissenting voice was Democratic Congress member, Barbara Lee of California, who three days after the 9/11 attack voted no. - Some of us must say, let's step back for a moment. Let's just pause just for a minute and think through the implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral out of control. - There was this AUMF that was passed that basically said, we're at a war with terrorism, the so-called war on terrorism. And that has been open-ended. There's no end to that war. Anytime any American president wants to come and just use it, they can use it. They literally used it to justify the Iraq war. They used it to bomb in Nigeria. They used it to bomb in Yemen, in Somalia. They used it to bomb in Venezuela, which is like, well, what does that have to do with the war on terrorism? And as you probably have noticed in recent weeks and months, the narrative that Venezuela was now becoming this nexus of narco-terrorism allowed them to say, well, we're still using the 2001 AUMF to carry out strikes and regime change in Venezuela because there's a connection between Venezuela, an alleged connection. They never provided any evidence, but an alleged connection between Venezuela and Iran and terrorist groups and narco-trafficking, which they now call narco-terrorism. - You live in Gaza. You are one of the only American anchors that has actually lived in Gaza, and you lived there for over two years. What perspective did that give you? - I mean, it changes your life. It's fundamentally, it changes your life on several experiences. One, living through a war, which I did in 2008, 2009, was just incredibly profound, deeply disturbing. And that changes you. But also understanding on a granular level what has happened in Gaza over the course of 20 years and where that situation has brought us to today, you realize how many missed opportunities there were to write a different course of history than what has happened. - How did living through a war in 2008 and 2009 shape you? - I mean- - Like what? - I mean- - What do you witness on the ground that changes your life, or the trajectory of your life, or even the way you look at the issue? - Man, you witness so much suffering. You witness so much pain. You witness so much innocence being destroyed and lost. You know, at one point in Gaza, it wasn't in 2008, but it was in a later war that I covered in 2014, I remember interviewing a mother who had infertility problems and she- she finally managed to have kids and her kids were killed as a result of an Israeli strike. And I remember just kind of speaking to her and her showing me, you know, the results of her fertility exams when she found out that she was pregnant the first time. It was one of the things that she was able to preserve. And it was just unbelievably heartbreaking. You know, I wouldn't appreciate that even more so until years later in my own life, just like having children and knowing people who have had fertility problems. And you kind of go back and you think about that moment and you realize what a, what a tragedy that human beings are still doing this to each other and capable of inflicting such harm and destruction to each other because they refuse to talk to each other and refuse to be able to understand each other and what people want. - In 2014, you reported from Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. I've heard you talk about this story of you on the beach and what you witness. Take us through that. - Sure, it was during the war. And we were out on an assignment in Gaza City and returning back to our hotel as a crew. And we were kind of using our hotel that was on the beach at the time, the Dira Hotel. We were using it as our kind of makeshift studio and workspace. A lot of foreign journalists stayed there. It was actually one of the few buildings that was known to the Israeli military because it housed so many international journalists, but also occasional UN workers. And when we were returning to the, you know, the, the, you know, when we were getting to the hotel after being out in the field for a couple of hours, there were a group of children who were playing just in front of the hotel soccer. And we were just kind of mingling going into the hotel. I saw the kids, we kicked the ball around for a few minutes. They then ran to the outside onto the side of the hotel down towards the beach. And surprisingly, even in the middle of a war, a lot of Palestinians in Gaza would go to the beach just for a few minutes of rest and, and, you know, escapism, if you will, to look out into the sea. So the kids went to the side of the beach, as the side of the hotel down to the beach, a group of journalists were kind of sitting on the terrace of the hotel, overlooking the beach. And I was in the lobby, I think going to my room when a series of strikes happened. - Gaza officials say the youngsters from the same family were playing when they were killed by shelling from an Israeli gunboat. - And of course in the immediate, you know, aftermath, we didn't know who was struck. We don't know what was struck, but a lot of the foreign journalists who were sitting on the terrace of the hotel immediately saw that it was a group of young kids who had run down from the main road onto the side of the hotel to the beach. And immediately we ran, you know, ran down to see what had happened to them, incredible pictures that were taken by various photographers. And then immediately we realized they were young kids. I and my crew ended up getting in a separate vehicle, driving to the hospital, following the car that was carrying the children that had just been struck. And we had arrived just as the mother was arriving to the hospital. Where she had found out that her kids, and I think also because they weren't all four her kids, it was her, her two of her kids and maybe, and some cousins, but it was all from the same family. I don't want to get it wrong, but it was four children from the same extended family. And one of the mothers had arrived and had heard the news that they were killed. Did you see the coverage from the Guardian by Peter Beaumont? Yes. Okay. So I want to show our viewers this, but let's, let's just revisit this real quick. So this is how it was written about in the Guardian. The first projectile hit the sea wall of Gaza City's little harbor just after four o'clock. As the smoke from the explosion thinned, four figures could be seen running. They waved and chattered at the watching journalists as they passed a little collection of brightly colored beach tents used by bathers in peacetime. It was there that the second shell hit the beach, those firing, apparently adjusting their fire to target the fleeing survivors. So this part I found to be particularly disturbing. All the journalists were there, but what Peter is, kind of setting up here is that those children were targeted. Yeah. Am I reading this correctly? Yes. Yeah. You were there with NBC News. Is it true that you didn't report on this on NBC News that night? Yeah. I mean, there's a little bit more context to it, but yes. Yeah. And then were you asked to leave Gaza and were you replaced by another reporter? Yes. Yes. Yes. The correspondent was Richard Engel. Yeah. So is he more of a Call of Duty reporter? No. I mean, would you say he was essentially parachuted in? Well, he didn't, he wasn't in Gaza at the time. I think the frustrating part about that experience in that moment was that Richard was in Tel Aviv. I was inside Gaza. He was in Tel Aviv. And so I had witnessed the event. I had seen the event. I had gone to the hospital. I had interviewed the mother. I had interviewed one of the survivors. And, you know, our crew filmed it. And it was extremely frustrating. But at the time, the editorial decision was to have Richard, who is the chief foreign correspondent, do the story from Tel Aviv. And there's a variety of, you know, factors that go into making that decision. It's not something that I make. It's the various producers and show executives that make those decisions. You've also written about the use of white phosphorus. Yeah. Now, I've seen that recently. What is white phosphorus? White phosphorus is a munition that basically when deployed, I mean, it's a chemical agent. When it's deployed, it creates an unbelievable glow in the sky and a big white cloud. And it's not illegal under international law to use, but it's regulated as to when it can be used in very specific areas. So it's supposed to be meant to be used by armies advancing against other armies. And if you're advancing and you want to kind of like create a smoke screen so that you can see what's going on, you can use it. But if the other army doesn't see where you are in your troop movements, that's when it's allowed to be used in open areas. Unfortunately, in Gaza, the Israelis used it on very densely populated civilian areas where there are no standing armies. And so the white phosphorus is extremely toxic, but it's also very dangerous and it burns. And it literally, if it lands on you, it will burn a hole through your flesh, through your bones, through everything. So they deployed that on a lot of the northern parts. And it was very sad because there were parts where young children didn't know what it was. And they were kind of running out to kind of kick the little, you know, piece of the white phosphorus that had landed in their community, not knowing what it was. And it would burn through them. In other cases, it would land on the building and burn and create all kinds of damage and destruction. On the ground in Jabalia, home to more than 100,000 Palestinians, children unaware of the deadly toxin dropped on them, naively playing with the munitions. As allegations that. Israel is using weapons illegally against a civilian population mount, a claim that Israel rejects. There is no doubt that it's the Palestinian people that are continuing to suffer. And there's no sign that the suffering will end anytime soon. Ayman Muhyiddin, Al Jazeera, Gaza. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that in 2025, 129 media workers were killed, the highest since they started tracking. Now, most of these people were in Gaza. Do you think your colleagues in America feel that solidarity with those journalists? No, not enough. Why? You know, it's a good question. I don't know if I have an answer for it. I just think that it's not as strong as it should be. You know, I think there are so many layers to covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that make it difficult for American journalists. There is sometimes a lack of solidarity. As you said, but I think it has to do more with a lack of awareness and having no experience there on the ground. I don't think that they necessarily see Palestinian journalists like themselves. They don't see them necessarily as, you know, white European journalists like some of their colleagues. And so I think sometimes there are reasons to that structural distance. And it's very disappointing. I don't I don't agree with it. I mean, I think the community of journalists, irrespective of where you are in this world, should be very united, should stand up. For the same principles and should not engage in what some journalists in this country have done, which is to try to vilify other journalists and justify their targeting and justify their killing, which I find extremely disturbing. And what's an example of that? I mean, there are journalists in the U.S. and who have made cases as to why Palestinian journalists are not real journalists, that they are affiliated with militant groups. You know, there was a infamous article that came out about Palestinians. And I think that there are a lot of Palestinian journalists that basically try to dehumanize them and say they're not like how we think of journalists. They're not the same types of journalists that we have in our society. And I think that basically serves as a justification or as a baseline justification for the use of violence against Palestinian journalists, which is, you know, as I said, completely unacceptable. You're talking about this idea of empathy and sympathy. What do those ideas mean to you? What do you mean? Because you've talked about the double standards in media coverage in regards to the many conflicts of the United States is involved in around the world. It seems like empathy and sympathy and the lack of that seem to be a consistent. Yeah, I mean, I mean, if you tell me there was a group of Mexican journalists that were killed trying to report on the cartels in Mexico or a group of journalists in Ukraine who are trying to report on Russia's war in Ukraine, irrespective of anything that these journalists do, irrespective of how they cover the story, irrespective of their politics and their viewpoints or the news organizations that they work for. I am always going to be sympathetic and I will have empathy for the work that they're trying to do. That is like where my baseline level of operating is. I don't sit there and try to justify and say, well, what was the journalist doing there? Well, that was kind of reckless of the journalist or that journalist deserved it or that journalist worked for a state affiliated outlet or that journalist worked for, you know, Russia 24 or that journalist works for whatever. So I try to separate myself first and foremost to saying, like, if you were a journalist. Working in the complex layers of journalism around the world, you will have my sympathy and empathy. There are layers then to, you know, outside of safety and death. Do I agree with that journalist? Do I support that journalist? Do I support that kind of reporting? That's a completely different debate. But the baseline of solidarity for journalists and their right to do their job and their profession without fear of being killed, attacked, detained, harassed, as we're seeing in this country. That is absolutely unacceptable. This episode is brought to you by TXU Energy. It's a first of its kind plan created for how Texans actually use energy. TXU Energy. Visit TXU.com. For more information, rep number 1-0-0-0-4. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode. Available on Plus and Pro plans. You know, for me, you almost feel like the Forrest Gump of recent Middle Eastern history. Because you reported from Gaza, you reported from Iraq, from Syria, from Ukraine. You were also at the Hahrir Square in 2011 with Al Jazeera. Now, as someone who was born in Egypt, what did that moment feel like for you? Oh, it was incredible. It was very emotional. It was probably the only time I think I cried on TV. What did that moment mean for you? I mean, it was a moment of. - Yeah, I mean, So growing up as a, as an Egyptian American, you always had this sense that Egypt as a country had tremendous potential. It is a great country with great people, great history and unbelievable sense of national identity, but it never realized that fulfillment. It never fulfilled that promise, if you will, of what it can be because of a variety of reasons. And one of the reasons was that it was not a free society, that it was always ruled in an authoritarian way so that the people, the great people of Egypt never were able to fully realize their potential. So in that brief moment in 2011, I think that the vast majority of Egyptians felt that they were about to realize that potential. They had just overthrown an authoritarian leader who had been there for, I think, 30 plus years, if not a little bit more. And there was this sense of euphoria that the country was going to transform into a truly free, democratic, tolerant, pluralistic society. Well, how do Egyptians put that whole thing in perspective now? Specifically, you have the revolution and it's followed by another dictatorship. Are they just like, all right, look, we tried. It didn't work. Now we just got to kind of lay back in the cut. I mean, what's the, what is the sentiment now? I think there are different parts of society that have different feelings. I mean, one part of society definitely feels that instability of the 2011 revolution is not worth the headache, right? Like 2011, as one would expect, brought a lot of instability. And with that instability brought a lot of uncertainty, both economically, politically, security wise. And so people were like, oh, I don't, I don't like this. I want my life to be as stable as possible. I don't want this disruption in the quality of my life. I don't want this sense of anxiety. I don't want this sense of uncertainty. I don't want this economic hardship. And so people were like, just put it all back in, into a bottle and bring about whatever leader that's going to kind of like stabilize the situation and try to improve the economic and political situation. That unfortunately was a, was a deal that was made that has brought about more restrictive and authoritarian politics in Egypt. And that's where we find ourselves today. Is there still a strong resistance that continues or has that pretty much been quelled and quieted? I think that the, I don't know if I would use the word resistance. I think it's more of a, I think it's more of a, I think it's more of a, I think it's more of a, I think it's Now, whether that aspiration manifests itself into protests, whether it manifests itself through gradual political participation, I think the expression that people use now is evolution, not revolution. People want to see an evolution of the state as opposed to being a democratic, as opposed to being an authoritarian state. They want to see it evolve into a democratic state and not just completely toppled and rebuilt. And there's several examples in the region that show that revolution is not a revolution. It's a revolution. It's a revolution. It's a revolution. Revolutions don't necessarily work in terms of immediate improvement. So people look at, say, what happened in Syria, what happened in Libya, what happened in Yemen, and say, those countries descended into years of civil war. Let's avoid that. And unfortunately, the politicians as well, and some of the leaders in countries like Egypt, exploit that and say, you don't want to end up like Syria. You don't want to end up like Libya. You don't want to end up like Yemen. You don't want too much instability, because if you get instability, we could find ourselves in a civil war. And so it's created this paralysis, and a truly genuine aspiration for a democratic, pluralistic society. And also this unease and nervousness of, I don't want to rock the boat too much, because I don't want the country to descend into and get fractured and become a failed state. Did that moment that you witnessed in Dahir Square when you're crying, and those are tears of joy, I'm assuming. Yeah. My dad is an immigrant from Egypt. He came to this country. And you know the experience when you're kind of weighted by the sacrifices your parents, make, and the home that they left to try to give you a better future and a promise in this country. You ask yourself all those questions about doubt, regret. Are you fulfilling that promise, that immigrant promise that they had for you? And so all of that kind of came to the surface in that moment, because you realize like, man, what a euphoric moment. Is this the Egypt that my parents had dreamt of? Is this the Egypt that my family had always wanted to see? Is this the beginning of it? And I just got to be a part of it and deliver that news. Are you jaded now, going through that? Do you become jaded at the possibility of change? Whenever people think of big revolution or the possibility of change in quote unquote democratic societies, as someone who got to witness it, not see it through? As an American, are you like, hey, you have to measure, you know, have tempered expectations? Not at all. Really? Yeah. I remain very optimistic. I remain very hopeful in human potential. I believe that humans, you know, yearn to be free. They yearn to have self-determination. They yearn to have, uh, control of their lives and have a say in how their lives are governed. So I still very much believe in, in, you know, people's hope. And, and I truly, truly believe in people power, you know? Can you give me an Iran war update, but put it in playing card terms? Have the good guys defeated all the bad guys or do I need to get another deck of cards? Uh, you're probably gonna have to get another deck of cards because the U S and Israel have killed a lot of senior Iranian officials, but the war is not over and they're, probably on like a second round of, uh, cards. There's new leaders that have emerged. We've got a new Supreme leader. We've got new commanders in the military and the IRGC. We've got new nuclear scientists. So fundamentally nothing has changed. Just the playing dark. What's your, what's your analysis of the coverage of American media covering this war? Now, have we learned our lesson from the suck on this energy of 2003? We are doing a little bit better because the media environment that we're operating in allows more voices in the mix. We are able to hear from Iranians directly when there is internet connectivity, but also there are many people around the world now who can participate in this conversation through social media, through other outlets, through independent media, through podcasts. And because the conversation has widened, you get more viewpoints, you get more opinions. And so anytime you have more conversation, you get better outcomes. In 2003, the internet, wasn't what it was. Podcasts weren't what they were. Social media wasn't what it was. So the conversation was very narrow and limited as to who gets to be the gatekeeper of information. That's not the case anymore. Have we learned all of the lessons? No, we still dehumanize and oversimplify and, um, you know, reduce conflicts. Also, we just have this tendency in American media and American society at large to, we always need to have a villain. We just, we love the kind of Rocky IV, Ivan Drago. Russian, you know, villain storyline, but we love it. How should we look at it? What's, what's a healthier way to look at it? Because as someone who has an Indian background, one, we all, we all love villains. I mean, even in Indian dramas, the villain is the mother-in-law. So the mother-in-law is essentially ISIS. Well, it's like, what's another way to see that your mother-in-law can have multitudes? I mean, it's the way that, uh, at the end of Rocky IV, he said, if you can change, and I can change, we can all change. So at the end of the day, it's, you don't have to defeat your enemy to come to that realization. It's, it's, you don't have to bomb and kill and destroy your way through 12 rounds of fighting to come to the realization, oh, wait, I can change. I can actually see the good in you and you can see the good in me. And we can try to find a way to, to talk about this. I think that we just need to shift our mindset from constantly trying to solve our problems militarily. That is like a fundamental problem in America where anytime we, we hit a roadblock or we feel that we're coming up against something that we don't like, whether it's an economic system or a political ideology or a country that doesn't want to be subservient to our interests in the region, our quick instinct is to say, how do we sanction them? How do we, uh, isolate them? How do we potentially bomb them? And I just think that is such a destructive worldview to have. You, you can't just constantly be obsessed with how am I going to defeat my adversaries and my enemies? You can't just constantly be obsessed with how am I going to defeat my enemies militarily, economically, as opposed to say, well, let me actually see if I can talk to them and see if I can actually convince them of my worldview. Let me convince them of like what I have to offer that is so good that they'll say, Hey, we actually, we realize that we want to be more like you, or we want to work with you, or we want to cooperate with you. But the idea of just constantly like sanctioning countries, killing people, denying them medicine, denying them food, denying them fuel, denying them development. You get free nights every night, all year long, plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use all summer. TXU Energy, energy for everything. Rep number 10004. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the TXU Energy podcast. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans. If you don't like it, we bomb them. And if they want to try to resist it, we bomb them even more. And we'll go ahead and do it. And if you don't like it, we bomb them. And if they want to go in there and topple their regime, it's just, it's just a very barbaric way of living, I think. Are there other forms of diplomacy that you found that are more effective that you wish was explored more in the United States of America. And are there any sort of examples of stories that you could point the audience to, to say, hey, this is an example of pulling other levers besides, you know, military strikes or illegal war? I mean, some of our, some of the countries that we've had the best relationships with have been as a result of diplomacy. I mean, even if they were at one point adversaries, whether it's, you know, Vietnam or countries that we kind of like shunned for a long period of time. And then we realized like, you know what, maybe if we engage with them economically, culturally, politically, we can foster better understanding. So, you know, the history of American diplomacy is long. I mean, America is a country, it's a very old country. It's been around, you know, for 250 years, as we know with, as a result of the UFC fight that's coming up. But at the end of the day, I think like if you actually engage diplomatically with countries, Russia is a perfect example. I mean, it was diplomacy is the reason why we did not go to war with Russia. We did not go to war with Russia, nuclear war with Russia, the USSR, for the better part of 50 years, it was it was being able to engage with them and disagreeing with them, but being firm in our positions and our values that allowed us to ultimately kind of break through. Hurry right away, no delay, stop the wave. Make your daddy glad you have had such a blast. This is something very special. When I was in Iraq, I was embedded with the American military while they were hunting for Saddam Hussein. alive 25 million dollar reward call us with any information that can lead to his arrest and then there's a tip line right there you can email them yeah tips at orha.centcom.mil got it so people in to crete who barely had any food or water electricity were encouraged to open up their yahoo email account and email and drop a tip to centcom exactly but these posters actually are now collector's items so wait so how did you how did you have the the foresight to be like let me get one of these well what happened was i was embedded with the troops and so there was like a whole stack of posters and oh it was like merch it was like a merch table no no they weren't they weren't handing them out they were literally plastering them on the wall so i was just like oh do you mind if i grab a handful of these and they said yeah absolutely i mean they had like hundreds of them they were literally going around it was like it was very like it was wheat paste it was wheat paste it was like yeah like you know like in new york on the green you know no of course post no bills yeah they were just going around the streets of tick read and like putting these up okay so i was with a group of soldiers and they said you know what you know you realize as a journalist that you get to witness history sometimes yeah and so i i grabbed a handful of these and i still have some so i'm giving you oh man thank you so put that in your office and they got them right they got them at the end i don't know if it was based on a tip but they got you want me to put this in my office why not i'm telling i'm telling if i put this up in my office booking might be tough a lot of people can't read what's what's i mean it's it's they they got them i know we got them we won