Original subtitles

[intro music plays]

[cheering, applause]

Hey! Hello!

Oh my god! Hello! How are you!

I'm Hasan Minhaj. Welcome to Patriot Act!

Thank you so much for coming out tonight!

My god, there's a lot of brown people here. Holy shit!

It feels like my cousin's wedding. Oh my god!

Now, if you've been watching the news,

then you know that Saudi Arabia has been engulfed in a massive diplomatic crisis

over the gruesome killing of Washington Post journalist

Jamal Khashoggi.

After weeks of denial, Saudi Arabia has finally admitted

Washington Post columnist Mr. Jamal Khashoggi died

inside their consulate in Turkey.

[reporter] The top Saudi prosecutor now says the killing was premeditated.

Last week the Saudis said it was an accident after a fistfight.

[reporter 2] And of course that's a real shift in the narrative from them.

This is the most unbelievable cover story

since Blake Shelton won Sexiest Man Alive.

[laughter]

Are you kidding me?

He's the fourth sexiest judge of The Voice.

[laughter]

Like, did Adam Levine walk in and just see this like, What the fuck?

Blake?

And this entire cover-up exists for one reason.

Some analysts say the Saudis' story is all designed to protect one man.

Turkish officials suggesting that

Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman dispatched a hit squad

to execute and dismember Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Just a few months ago crown prince Muhammad bin Salman aka MBS

was hailed as the reformer the Arab world needed.

But the revelations about Khashoggi's killing

have shattered that image, and it blows my mind

that it took the killing of a Washington Post journalist

for everyone to go, Oh. I guess he's really not a reformer.

Meanwhile, every Muslim person you know was like, Yeah, no shit!

He's the crown prince of Saudi Arabia!

[laughter]

So now would be a good time to reassess our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

And I mean that as a Muslim and as an American.

For Muslims, Saudi Arabia is home to two of the holies cities in the Islamic world:

Mecca and Medina. Now, you've probably heard of Mecca.

It's often used to describe everything except Mecca.

[male reporter] We're taking you to the Mecca of Christmas ornaments.

[female reporter] The Mecca of all chicken sandwich shops.

The Mecca of lost luggage.

The Mecca for like martial arts.

-Oh, thanks Action Bronson. -[laughter]

Mecca and Medina are basically the Muslim Infinity Stones of holiness.

At least once in our lives we have to go to Mecca

to make pilgrimage aka Hajj. It's like Coachella,

except you can't get annoyed when people say they had a religious experience.

Saudi in Saudi Arabia comes from the actual name of a family.

That's the House of Saud that has been governing Arabia since 1932.

Can you imagine

if the United States was suddenly named after our leader in 1932?

We would be the Herbert States of Hoover.

[laughter]

Or worse. Hooverville.

Look how that turned out.

That's an AP Gov joke. I'm sorry, if you don't get that joke...

you weren't in AP Gov.

Saudi Arabia is crazy.

One giant family controls everything.

Reports say there are anywhere from 5,000 to over 15,000 members

of the Saud family, with 2,000 allegedly controlling the wealth and the power.

Some estimates put their net worth

at more than one trillion dollars,

one trillion.

That's like the number of stars in the universe

or the number of times women have been betrayed by Susan Collins.

[laughter]

When you add it up: its insane wealth, its place in Islam and the Middle East,

it all makes Saudi Arabia a country of huge significance.

Which is why every single president since FDR

has maintained a strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia.

Whether it's for oil or arms deals,

we have always played it cool with the Saudis no matter what they do.

Remember, America hates terrorists.

Saudi Arabia gave them passports.

Saudi Arabia was basically the boy band manager of 9/11.

They didn't write the songs, but they helped get the group together.

[laughter]

Suddenly, America's marriage of convenience with Saudi Arabia

is starting to feel outdated.

How outdated?

Our military has been working in Saudi Arabia for decades.

And if you are sent on a training mission in Saudi Arabia,

this is the official military document you get.

It describes the Saudi people as indigenous tribes

with some later mixture of Negro blood from slaves imported from Africa.

Oh, America.

Even in boring technical manuals you still somehow manage to be racist.

This shit is still on the internet, you guys!

But, Hasan, it was probably written a while ago.

Really, it was updated June 2018.

But, Hasan, these things are like an iTunes user agreement.

It's probably at the bottom. Oh no, it's Chapter 1, page 5.

Okay. But is 'negro' still a bad word?

Dictionary.com: offensive.

[applause]

Now let's get back to Muhammad bin Salman.

Remember, he was known as the reformer

who was gonna change the Arab world.

People in the West fell for MBS because they bought his sales pitch.

I mean, come on! He lifted the ban on women driving!

A female singer in Saudi Arabia has dropped a new music video,

rapping behind the wheel of a car she can now drive legally.

Wheel is in my hand And I step on the pedal

I won't ask for a ride

I'll drive myself, I've got the license

Strap seatbelt over the abaya

R for reverse, D for drive You control the machine

If it's Ford or Cressida You won't be happy

As a fan of progress and women's rights, this is awesome.

But as a fan of hip hop, this is straight garbage.

First of all, the car is dirty.

If you're gonna make a rap video about driving, get a car wash.

Second of all,

she's rapping about driving, but for most of the video, she sits in the car,

she sits on the car, she stands in the sunroof,

she does everything but drive that car.

Also, this is a Hyundai.

I didn't even know you could buy Hyundais.

I thought they only existed in Hertz parking lots.

[laughter]

Giving women the right to drive was just the start.

MBS's main attraction was Vision 2030.

Now, I know Vision 2030 sounds like Elon Musk's new optometry company,

but it's actually a plan to end Saudis' reliance on oil and diversify the economy.

Last summer he went on a world tour

to drum up investment in Saudi Arabia, and when he got to America,

MBS was greeted like a rock star.

[reporter] He's already met with Seattle's tech heavyweights,

sharing a laugh, there, you can see, with Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

[reporter 2] He will have visited five states plus the district of Columbia,

four presidents, five newspapers, uncounted moguls, and Oprah.

-Oprah? -[laughter]

He got to hang with Oprah?

The last foreigner America got this excited about

was the Italian peach in Call Me by Your Name.

[laughter]

This is a niche art-house joke, you know? Just trying to hit all the pockets.

But that all came crashing down in the wake of Khashoggi's death.

This is not some back alley in Istanbul.

This is inside the frickin' Saudi consulate.

I can never do business with Saudi Arabia again.

I feel used and abused.

Yes.

If there's one victim in all of this,

it's senator Lindsey Graham.

[applause]

Here's the crazy part:

MBS was shocked by all of the anger

over the killing of one journalist.

According to the Wall Street Journal, on a phone call with Jared Kushner,

MBS asked, Why the outrage?

And frankly, MBS's confusion is completely understandable.

He's been getting away with autocratic shit like this for years,

with almost no blowback from the international community.

Saudi Arabia's young crown prince

arresting hundreds of his own cousins in a power grab.

[reporter] Many of those arrested are potential rivals or critics of the prince.

One of the people MBS rounded up in his power grab was this guy:

Al-Waleed bin Talal. He's one of the richest men in the world.

And he was detained at The Ritz-Carlton for 3 months.

And while he was there, this hostage video dropped

to let everyone know that everything with MBS

was absolutely 100%... fine.

-There are no charges. -Okay.

Just some discussions between me and the government.

But rest assured that we are at the end of the whole story.

And we are very comfortable, because I'm in my country,

I'm in my city, so...

I feel at home, so no problem at all here.

Okay, there's definitely a problem here, I'm sorry.

I don't know if he's guilty, but why is his face on his own mug?

This is literally a mug shot.

[laughter, applause]

The rest of this video just turns into the worst episode of MTV Cribs ever.

I'll show you my pantry here.

These are my salads.

And this is my Diet Pepsi.

And that's my ketchup. Always.

Why is he bragging about ketchup

when there are two solid-gold lotas right behind him?

I know they're teapots, but, come on, they look like lotas, man.

By the way, when I say this is one of the worst episodes of Cribs,

I'm including the Trick Daddy episode.

If y'all not familiar with this, this is called baby wipes.

Whatever you want. This keeps boo-boo stains out ya drawers.

This keeps crust out ya drawers.

No grown man needs to be walking around with no crust in their drawers.

When you do the number two, use Wet Ones.

-Okay. -[laughter]

Wet Ones are great, but Trick Daddy still should've used a lota.

Some people are looking at me, they're like, What is a lota?

If you've ever been to a brown person's house,

they'll have this small watering pot in the corner of their bathroom,

but there won't be a plant in there. That's a lota!

Lotas are the manual transmissions of bidets.

You go number two, you pour it in your hand, you just get to work.

A lot of people think it's gross, but you know what I think is gross?

Toilet paper. Okay, toilet paper is gross.

If you walk through dog shit in your Air Jordans,

and if I only gave you a piece of toilet paper to clean it up,

you would think it's nasty, too, so why don't we treat our butts

with the same respect we treat our Air Jordans?

You thought you were coming to just see this woke TED Talk, little did you know...

you were also gonna get booty health tips.

MBS's power grab was just his standard operating procedure.

Just look at how he became crown prince:

according to The New Yorker, MBS became crown prince

after his predecessor and cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef,

was subjected to excruciating pain until he abdicated the throne.

The Saudi government has denied the story, but there are many more like it.

In 2016, U.S. intelligence picked up the crown prince talking about

his moves to try to keep his mother away from his father,

because he felt that she was not on board

with his plans for a power grab.

She was under house arrest.

He put his mom under house arrest so she couldn't stop his rise to power?

That's insane.

Putting an Arab mom on house arrest is like trying to imprison Magneto.

She's just gonna escape, and there's gonna be hell to pay.

Again, the Saudi government has denied this story,

but none of this would come as a surprise if you actually lived in Saudi Arabia,

because in Saudi Arabia, do you know what his nickname is?

Abu Rasasa.

Which means Father of the Bullet.

That is the most gangster name ever.

Do you know what El Chapo means?

Shorty.

[laughter]

Prisons are filling up in Saudi Arabia.

Hundreds are being detained, including critics of MBS and political activists.

Some of the most prominent activists are women who protested the driving ban.

And MBS had them arrested, and several of them are still in prison.

Even executions are up:

the country is on track to execute more than 2,000 people by the year 2030.

Now that's the Vision 2030 nobody's talking about.

Strong-arming, coercion, detaining people...

these are MBS's go-to moves, and he's been getting away with all of it,

so of course he would call Jared like, Hey! Why the outrage?

Our relationship with Saudi Arabia

has always been a complete mindfuck for me.

As Muslims, we have to pray towards Mecca.

We make pilgrimage to Mecca. We access God through Saudi Arabia,

a country that I feel does not represent our values.

But, Hasan, there are a lot of things people are conflicted about.

Look at Amazon, Amazon's messed up.

I don't pray towards Seattle, okay?

[laughter]

Saudi Arabia is only 2% of the entire Muslim population,

but whenever Saudi does something wrong,

Muslims around the world have to live with the consequences.

Hey, don't chop off my hand Saudi-style!

But when Saudi does something right

and MBS extends the most basic freedoms to his people,

all of a sudden he's in Oprah's Book Club?

That's insane!

And we haven't even gotten to Yemen yet,

which is the biggest tragedy of the MBS era.

[male reporter] The Saudi intervention in Yemen

began with the rise of 32-year-old crown prince Muhammad bin Salman.

[female reporter] Local sources say tens of thousands of their fighters

have been killed since the war started.

The situation in Yemen, today, right now,

to the population of the country, looks like the apocalypse.

The conflict in Yemen is extremely complex,

but here are the cliff notes in under 40 seconds.

Yemen was spiraling into civil war.

The Houthi rebels, who've fought the government for years,

almost seized power in 2015.

Then Saudi Arabia intervened to prop up the Yemeni government.

Saudi was like, Yo, I gotchu.

Don't worry, but there's something you should know.

I think these rebels are getting help from Iran.

That's important because Saudi Arabia and Iran hate each other.

So, Saudi Arabia started bombing the shit out of rebel territory,

compliments of the West,

and now many experts think Saudi Arabia is using Yemen

as a proxy war against Iran to control the region.

Take three wars, shove them into the Arab world's poorest country,

and that's the conflict in Yemen.

[cheering, applause]

Don't clap. That is a global atrocity.

It is the worst of everything happening in one place, and people keep wondering,

Will this ever end?

-So it's basically the Golden Globes. -[laughter]

Over the last three years,

the Saudi coalition has launched more than 18,000 airstrikes against Yemen.

That is insane. If we're talking Middle East bombing, that's up there.

Those are almost Obama numbers. Almost.

And all that bombing has led to catastrophic devastation.

[reporter] Saudi Arabia and its allies have breached the basic rules of war.

Civilians have been repeatedly targeted,

with some attacks on schools and hospitals.

Thirteen million people in Yemen are at risk of starvation

in what could become the world's worst famine for a century.

The war in Yemen is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the Middle East,

which is a high bar to clear.

Being the biggest crisis in the Middle East

is like being the biggest subway masturbator in New York.

It's a title no one wants,

but the competition is fierce.

By all accounts, this is MBS's war, but if you ask MBS about it,

he pulls a Shaggy, he's like, Hey, it wasn't me!

[woman] Do you acknowledge that it has been a humanitarian catastrophe?

5,000 civilians killed and children starving there?

[speaks Arabic]

[interpreter] It is truly very painful, and I hope that this militia

ceases using the humanitarian situation to their advantage

in order to draw sympathy from the international community.

Instead of calling off the airstrikes, one thing MBS did

was throw money at the problem, seriously.

He wrote a check for $930 million to the U.N. for humanitarian aid to Yemen.

Come on.

If there was ever a time for a giant Powerball check, this was it.

Damn, $930 million. That's a lot of money. You know what's free, though?

Not bombing Yemen.

Whether it's Yemen, Jamal Khashoggi or human rights violations,

do you really think it's going to change our relationship with Saudi Arabia?

In terms of the order of $110 billion, think of that, $110 billion.

All they're gonna do is give it to other countries,

and I think that would be very foolish for our country.

America is going to keep cashing Saudi checks.

And not just for military equipment.

Just this week Saudi Arabia announced more than $30 billion of new deals.

Let's be real.

Oil companies, financial institutions and defense contractors,

nothing will make them say no to Saudi money.

But there may be one sector of the economy that we can expect more from.

The Saudis have become kind of the funder of last resort

for these big, late-stage privately held tech companies.

Saudi Arabia has invested $3.5 billion in Uber alone,

so they have a lot of money in the United States.

3.5 billion.

Thanks to MBS, the Saudis effectively own 10% of Uber,

which makes complete sense.

Saudi Arabia and Uber are both places women drivers don't feel safe.

[laughter]

Too real?

Tech companies are swimming in more Saudi cash

than a Bugatti dealership in Beverly Hills.

All of these companies have taken Saudi investment

through a Japanese company called SoftBank.

Slack, WeWork, Fanatics, DoorDash, Wag.

Wag!

-The dog walking app. -[laughter]

That is crazy. Muslims are investing in the dog market.

You know how we feel about dogs.

Muslims feel about dogs the same way Americans feel about Post Malone.

We're cool with them...

we just don't want them in the house.

[laughter]

They're gonna get the carpet dirty. My sister's in there.

[laughter]

Since 2016, MBS has invested almost $11 billion in Silicon Valley,

making Saudi Arabia the largest single funding source for U.S. startups.

Come on, Silicon Valley, you're supposed to be hippie capitalists.

WeWork won't let you expense meat,

but you take money from Saudi Arabia?

So you're against slaughterhouses, unless they're in Yemen?

But hey! Try our co-working spaces! We got Philz Coffee!

[laughter]

What the fuck?

Look, I am genuinely rooting for change in Saudi Arabia.

I am rooting for the people of Saudi Arabia.

There are people in Saudi Arabia fighting for true reform,

but MBS is not one of them.

And to those who continue to work with him,

just know that with every deal you close,

you are simply helping entrench an absolute monarch

under the guise of progress,

because ultimately, MBS is not modernizing Saudi Arabia.

The only thing he's modernizing is Saudi dictatorship.

[cheering, applause]

[music plays]

Thank you.

This MBS story, it's nuts.

Especially as a Muslim.

A lot of people are like, Hey, this MBS thing is not a good look for us.

It's not getting good press, and people are like, What are your thoughts on it?

And people have told me,

You should probably lean into the Indian side of your identity.

And I get it, people love Indians.

They look at us, they're like, doctors, lawyers, engineers.

If you've been watching the news lately, a lot of us have joined the dark side.

Have you seen this? Look at the Trump administration:

Nikki Haley, Raj Shah, Ajit Pai, Dr. Seema Verna.

My mom's name is Seema and she's a doctor.

You understand what type of mindfuck that is for me?

Trump employs more Indians than any show on television.

And it's not just politics. Indians can be awful in every industry.

Just look at John Kapoor. Do you guys know about John Kapoor?

He's a pharma entrepreneur who went rogue.

Prosecutors say Kapoor helped devise a plan to bribe doctors

into prescribing the potent opiate to non-cancer patients.

His attorney says Kapoor is innocent

and intends to fight the charges vigorously.

[reporter] Kapoor is facing some very serious list of felony charges,

including racketeering, mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy.

I love how he didn't stop at just one type of fraud.

He got all the frauds.

That's the prison equivalent of taking the MCAT and the GMAT.

He's like, I'm just trying to cover my bases here.

Kapoor is out on bail right now,

and he doesn't even have to wear an ankle monitor,

because he complained it interfered with his jogging.

Yeah, no shit, that is the whole point of ankle monitors:

to stop you from running.

Isn't that the most uncle shit ever?

He's just taking like a morning tahal, like, It's hurting me!

And they're like, Alright, just...

Let him take it off.

Now, obviously... we can't talk about shitty Indians

without talking about the former governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal,

who took a billion-dollar state budget surplus

and drove it straight into the ground.

[reporter] Deep cuts will have to be spread across many state agencies

including 84 million from higher education and 108 million dollars from healthcare.

What self-respecting Indian hurts colleges and hospitals?

[laughter]

We go to college so we can work at hospitals.

That's our farm to table, Bobby.

[laughter, applause]

And then...

there was the painting in his office.

[reporter] First of all, neither of these look that much like you,

but what's the problem with the one on the left?

What's the problem?

-He gentrified his face! -[laughter]

That painting should be an ad for Fair & Lovely.

Fair & Lovely: we'll make you so white,

you'll change your name from Piyush to Bobby.

Then, of course, there is the kingpin:

Dinesh D'Souza.

He is on the Mount Rushmore of shitty Indians.

Twice. He's that bad.

If you don't know, Dinesh D'Souza is a far-right political commentator,

author, filmmaker and complete psychopath.

It's not that Obama hates America,

it's not that he's trying to take America down,

it's almost like this:

if I was in a family and I believed that my dad

was some kind of a serial killer or a child molester,

I would still love him, he would still be part of my family...

Would you?

Would you still love your child-molesting, murdering father?

Also, how does that connect to Barack Obama?

Not only does Dinesh say insane shit, he also writes insane shit.

[reporter] He tweeted about Rosa Parks,

Overrated democrats department:

So Rosa Parks wouldn't sit in the back of the bus--

that's all she did, what's the big fuss?

I love that Dinesh was like, You know who's had it too good for too long?

Rosa Parks.

A black woman who lived in Jim Crow Alabama.

Who's he gonna go after next? Victims of a school shooting?

Oh yeah, he did that, too.

[reporter] He was heavily criticized for his tweets

on the Parkland School shooting,

including retweeting this image

showing students reacting to a failed gun control vote,

writing, Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs.

In 2014, Dinesh was charged with campaign finance violations,

which is great,

but then, miraculously, Donald Trump pardoned him,

which was terrible.

Except it gave us one of the best exchanges ever.

The notion that just because you've accepted a pardon

automatically means you're guilty

I think is reasoning for stupid people.

But you eventually pleaded guilty to this.

I did.

Yes! Yes!

How does this happen?

This isn't how we were raised. We're capable of so much more.

But maybe...

I'm looking at these terrible Indians in the wrong way, maybe they're not terrible.

Maybe they're trailblazers.

John Kapoor, Bobby Jindal, Dinesh D'Souza...

They're actually setting us free.

For once, Indians don't have to be doctors

or pharmacists, or accountants.

We can be so much more!

We can finally be as bad as we wanna be.

My parents want me to win the Scripps spelling bee.

My dad wants me to take college classes in middle school.

My mom makes me do taekwondo,

but only because it looks good on college applications.

My parents say I have to be a doctor.

That sounded boring until I heard about John Kapoor.

[reporter] John Kapoor was arrested on charges

including racketeering, conspiracy, and fraud.

Thanks to John Kapoor,

I know that I can be a doctor who fucks around in the drug game.

As a national merit scholar,

I was obsessed with getting the right answer,

but Dinesh D'Souza taught me that I don't have to.

I don't even have to say things that make sense.

I can be a complete fucking lunatic.

The idea that there's not a mere analogy between Hitler and the democrats...

he got his schemes from them.

I thought I couldn't be hardcore because my name is Raj,

but then businessman Raj Gupta got arrested for insider trading.

[reporter] He is about to be criminally charged.

[reporter 2] Prosecutors say Rajat Gupta was leaking secret corporate information.

[reporter 3] Gupta often shared that valuable inside information

with convicted hedge fund trader Raj Rajaratnam.

That's three Rajs in one crime.

Rajs are dope.

I want most in my Wikipedia page to be the controversies tab.

Forget good grades. I'm making insider trades.

I wanna make money off of cancer patients and use it to hunt rhinos.

I wanna destroy a government agency from the inside.

My bindi is gonna be a prison tattoo.

A kid named Raj ain't nothing to fuck with.

[applause]

[cheering]

Man, those kids are the American dream.

That's our show. Good night!

I'll see you next week.

[outro music plays]

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