Rep. ILHAN OMAR Talks Terror In Minneapolis And Becoming American

Check out https://www.squarespace.com/TAFS to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code TAFS. -- See Adam on tour https://theadamfriedland.show/pages/tour -- JOIN THE FRIEDLAND FAMILY FOUNDATION / PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAdamFriedlandShow/join -- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheAdamFriedlandShow -- Buy our merch!: https://theadamfriedland.show/collections/new -- The Adam Friedland Show - Season Two Episode 43 | Rep. Ilhan Omar X: https://x.com/adam_talkshow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theadamfriedlandshow TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@adamfriedlandshowclips YouTube: Subscribe to @TheAdamFriedlandShow here: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAdamFriedlandShow Subscribe to @TAFSClips here: https://www.youtube.com/@tafsclips -- Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/TAFS and use code TAFS and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Start your free trial and get 50% off your first year of total money clarity using link www.monarch.com/tafs or code TAFS -- #adamfriedland #theadamfriedlandshow #IlhanOmar Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Adam Friedland?

  Your family got the visa to move to the States and to leave the refugee camp in Kenya. Also, you learned how to scrap. Is that where you learned how to scrap?

• 0:11Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I've got six older siblings, I've got three brothers, so...

• 0:16Adam Friedland?

  And you've never lost one fight? Could you, you could beat up anyone in Congress?

• 0:21Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't want my brothers being upset about this, but yeah.

• 0:25Adam Friedland?

  You beat they butts? I don't know why I said it that way. You beat your brother's butts?

• 0:31Adam Friedland?

  To a little girl?

• 0:32Speaker 01

  We'll leave that to the imagination.

• 0:34Adam Friedland?

  You were little, though.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  I was, but...

• 0:36Adam Friedland?

  Did you do it in front of girls their age?

• 0:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 0:39Adam Friedland?

  Thank God. They would have never lived that down.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  But I rarely fought girls. I mostly fought boys.

• 0:45Adam Friedland?

  She's such a gangster.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 1:18Adam Friedland?

  Hello and welcome to The Adam Friedland Show. It's Adam, guys. First off, I have to say this is Tampa, Florida. This weekend, please come see me. Science Explorers Comedy Club. And also, in a couple of weeks, I'll be in Los Angeles, California, at the Region Theater. We sold out the first show. They've added a second. Enough of that. My guest this week is Ilhan Omar, representative from Minnesota in the House of Representatives. Since her election to the House in 2019, Omar has become one of the most well-known, oftentimes maligned politicians in America today. I really enjoyed getting to know her backstory. I knew some of it, but it's really unlike any other member of Congress.

• 1:59Adam Friedland?

  At eight years old, civil war broke out in Somalia and she escaped to Kenya, to a refugee camp. And at 12, she moved to Virginia with her family before... Eventually settling in Minneapolis. Since her election to Congress, she's also been subject to constant harassment and even death threats. There have been Republican candidates for office who have called for her execution. Multiple people have been imprisoned for plotting her assassination. President Trump has targeted her repeatedly throughout her entire time in Congress. He's advocated for her expulsion from the country, among just other derogatory whatever.

• 2:39Adam Friedland?

  Funny enough, we had this scheduled twice before on the calendar, and those two times were the days that New York City had blizzards this year.

• 2:48Adam Friedland?

  This is Islamophobic.

• 2:49Adam Friedland?

  The Jewish god is mad at me. Hashem is mad at me. The first two times, she had extensive security detail that was provided by Congress. She was the only member of Congress that had it, and they needed access to do full security sweeps of the studio. And on Friday, when I asked her team if they needed access this weekend, they said that Speaker Johnson has revoked that security. You know, I had a bunch of questions prepared for the Congresswoman about what it's like for a person to endure, all that. But what I could tell immediately is that she's genuinely just unafraid and unfazed,

• 3:33Adam Friedland?

  or at least she seems like she is. I don't think many people could do that. I think it takes a really special person to do that. So here's my interview. We do a funny bit up top, if you're still watching. Ilhan Omar. She said it was better than Hassan, just for the record. Ladies and gentlemen, Congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar. This is our third attempt at this.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  It is.

• 4:03Adam Friedland?

  It is.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  How are you?

• 4:05Adam Friedland?

  Do you think that this is cursed? Do you think we're cursed?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  You know, there's always weather issues.

• 4:11Adam Friedland?

  No, we've had two blizzards.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  You're from Minnesota, so it's just...

• 4:14Adam Friedland?

  In New York City, we've had two blizzards, and those were both on the day that you were supposed to come.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Welcome to our situation in Minnesota.

• 4:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, do you like it there? It seems plenty cold, no?

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, but as Prince said, it keeps the bad people away.

• 4:30Adam Friedland?

  One thing that kind of is a little bit upsetting to me is that enemy of the show, Mr. Hassan, Hassan Peker, got you. He snuck in there and he gave you a tea that everyone, it's become a meme. Hassan got some store bought bottled tea that was warm. And everyone's like, wow, he's such a great guy, so.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  It's one of my favorites, though.

• 4:52Adam Friedland?

  Fine, but I've done one better.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:56Adam Friedland?

  I've gotten.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  It's a big challenge.

• 4:58Adam Friedland?

  I've got authentic Somali tea. We're gonna do a cooking segment, late night talk show style. Can we get, can we get the boys out here? And we're gonna do, we're gonna do a segment called Somali tea.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Okay. We're actually gonna make Somali tea?

• 5:12Adam Friedland?

  We're gonna make Somali tea. You're gonna teach me how, but I'm also gonna spill some Somali tea.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Okay, alright, sounds good.

• 5:19Adam Friedland?

  I don't know if you've.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  I don't know if Trump will approve of this, but.

• 5:22Adam Friedland?

  What do you mean? Well, I heard Donald Trump's been getting fat. It's like that kind of thing, we're spilling tea. Hurry up, guys. She's not sure about the show yet. We gotta really win her over with this Somali tea.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Did you hear it from Trump?

• 5:37Adam Friedland?

  No, no.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  You can't believe, okay, I'm just saying.

• 5:40Adam Friedland?

  We're not gonna do racism, no, like.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  I'm just, I'm just saying your tea can't come.

• 5:45Adam Friedland?

  No, listen, sis, we're spilling the tea and it's gonna be piping hot.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  These things need to be grinded, would you have a?

• 5:52Adam Friedland?

  No, we, no, no, here are the leaves.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Okay. The cardamom needs to be broken and the cloves.

• 6:00Adam Friedland?

  Oh my god, I look like an idiot, guys. What do I turn this on, extra hot? Do we have water?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  We need water.

• 6:08Adam Friedland?

  Behind me? So, yeah, from a very.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Is this on?

• 6:12Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, look, look how expensive this looks, huh?

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:16Adam Friedland?

  Wow, this is just, I feel like a Jimmy Fallon, huh? Well, maybe I can serve a little piping hot tea. Cause I was on Somalispot.com.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:29Adam Friedland?

  And I, I heard that the truth about that Ashraf guy on TikTok is that he's rich because he and his brother work for slash own an NGO in Somalia. But you didn't hear that from me.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:46Adam Friedland?

  You, you get it, it's like tea.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  I got it.

• 6:49Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 6:52Adam Friedland?

  I don't, a little birdie.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  I'm struggling trying to keep some of these things open. It's fine, we're good to go.

• 6:59Adam Friedland?

  Well, that's, so, so what, a dash of cloves?

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've got some cinnamon, cardamom, it needs to be broken up, but, okay.

• 7:07Adam Friedland?

  Okay, just, a little birdie told me that the president of Somali land, Abdurrahman Mohammed Abdullah, has announced a sweeping cabinet reshuffle, involving new appointments, dismissals, and transfers across key ministries, but you didn't hear that from me, sis.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Wow.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:29Adam Friedland?

  We were putting you to work, you're the guest. This is gonna be delicious, I'm sure. I don't know if you heard this, but Ethiopia and Eritrea have been saying that they have more beautiful lighthouses than us.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Well, we have the longest coast in Somalia, so I don't, I don't know.

• 7:46Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and I heard Eritrea said she had breathing issues, but really, it was a nose job.

• 7:54Adam Friedland?

  Oh my god, we're being so bad right now? So that's our bit Somali tea, we're gonna...

• 8:02Adam Friedland?

  This is by far the stupidest thing we've ever done on the show. Can someone take the hot plate and then pour us the tea?

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you lift that, I can lift this.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  No, we don't.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 8:14Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no, no. Okay. Ow! No, this is terrible, this is very dangerous.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  You can leave that there, I'll move the whole table. You grab that, there we go.

• 8:23Adam Friedland?

  Wow.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  I'll leave this there.

• 8:25Adam Friedland?

  Guys, that, our first cooking segment has been an absolute winner. Justin, don't put it in a solo cup, it's gonna melt it.

• 8:32Adam Friedland?

  That's what Caleb told me.

• 8:33Adam Friedland?

  No, we have these.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:34Adam Friedland?

  I was about to say, do we have mud?

• 8:36Adam Friedland?

  I've really enjoyed learning about you for this episode. And I think that you're obviously, do you feel like you're one of the most well-known members of Congress? I mean...

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 8:49Adam Friedland?

  Would it be fair to say that you're you're used as a political cudgel?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I might be a little bit of a boogeyman for the MAGA, yeah.

• 8:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and it started pretty much immediately if I remember correctly.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yes, right after I like won my primary race for the state house. So nobody should have actually known who I was.

• 9:09Adam Friedland?

  Well, I, well, how did Maroon 5 find out who you were? I don't know if any of you know this, but in the Girls Like You video, you are along with Ellen DeGeneres, Gal Gadot.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  J Lo.

• 9:23Adam Friedland?

  If I could be a fly on that. Cardi B?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I guess, when, like, when did you come to national prominence or something? Like, that was obviously before you were in Congress.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Well, when I won my state house race,

• 9:39Speaker 01

  they said I was the first Somali legislator to be elected in the United States. And I think people didn't distinguish the fact that I was a state legislator and not a member of Congress.

• 9:52Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  And so everybody was congratulating me. I was getting phone calls from like world leaders.

• 9:57Adam Friedland?

  Of becoming the president of the United States, yeah.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  And people were going to the Capitol trying to find my office.

• 10:06Adam Friedland?

  So everyone is very stupid.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Well.

• 10:10Adam Friedland?

  Was it like just a very generous headline? Did they not?

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that people still, most people that don't know that state legislators and, you know, because you're called a representative when you're a state legislator.

• 10:24Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  And when you're in the House, you're also called a representative. So people, I think, just kind of confuse the two.

• 10:30Adam Friedland?

  And you beat a lady who wanted to lower the voting age to 12? Is that correct?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  Well, she was there for 44 years, so.

• 10:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but she said that 13-year-olds should vote?

• 10:40Speaker 01

  She had some interesting ideas.

• 10:42Adam Friedland?

  I, I think that's cool. I think kids rule. I think the maximum voting age should be 18.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  I have a pretty smart 13-year-old, and I'm not sure she's ready to vote.

• 10:51Adam Friedland?

  I think she is. I think the kids rock and teachers suck and there's too much homework. Thirteen, that was my.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  They don't, they don't give as much homework as they used to when, when I was in high school now.

• 11:04Adam Friedland?

  Oh boo hoo.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  I know.

• 11:05Adam Friedland?

  That rocks.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh no, it's sad for a parent. I'm like, I want the same torture I went through for my kids to go through.

• 11:12Adam Friedland?

  Did you have them at home for COVID?

• 11:14Speaker 01

  I did have them home for COVID for, for kids.

• 11:18Adam Friedland?

  You were in the government and you had four kids at the Korean?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was wild.

• 11:23Adam Friedland?

  Were you losing your mind?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  It was actually more entertaining because I, I remember like I was, one time I was cooking lunch and my youngest daughter, who was in elementary at the time, I think she was in third grade, was doing PE through the computer and like.

• 11:40Adam Friedland?

  Computer PE.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so I just like, she was on her laptop at the dining room table and I turned around and she was doing jumping jacks. And I, it was, I, I, yeah, it was a very weird thing to see her do and then like to hear everyone else like doing it through the noise that was coming from the computer.

• 12:00Adam Friedland?

  That must stink though, that you can't like see your friends.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  It, it, that was painful, yeah, yeah. But it was a good bonding time for, I think, the four of them.

• 12:09Adam Friedland?

  Do you think we afford kids enough sympathy for that? I think we only talk about their like gender like surgeries, but I don't think we talk about the fact that it, they went through a tough time growing up, no?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of like social interaction that was missed for a lot of the kids that went through COVID.

• 12:28Adam Friedland?

  Are they, they're weird, no?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  A little bit.

• 12:31Adam Friedland?

  You lost your mom young.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  I did.

• 12:33Adam Friedland?

  So, uh, you were two?

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Two-ish, yeah.

• 12:37Adam Friedland?

  So, uh, I guess like how did you, you had to teach yourself how to be a mother?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  I did, yeah. I mean, and I think, you know, I was actually just talking to my youngest daughter about this. I, you know, I was raised by my dad and grandpa and they were both strict, but they liked to talk to us as if we were adults. And so we, you know, were free to have opinions and debate with them and it wasn't like, they didn't consider it disrespectful. And, you know, we had a lot of like autonomy as, as kids and so that's kind of how I raised my kids. It's like they, they know what not to do.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  But they're also like very independent and.

• 13:24Adam Friedland?

  Thank you, Justin.

• 13:27Adam Friedland?

  I appreciate it. Great timing. What's the lechaim in Somalia? What's the cheers?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Oh, we don't do cheers.

• 13:38Adam Friedland?

  Oh, because it's no, yeah, haram.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:41Adam Friedland?

  Well, lechaim.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  It didn't make it into our vocabulary.

• 13:43Adam Friedland?

  Lechaim, yeah.

• 13:47Adam Friedland?

  I burned my tongue, so.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Maybe salud.

• 13:49Adam Friedland?

  Salute?

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Yes, we were colonized by the Italians, so there's a lot of Italian influence.

• 13:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, when you were talking about your father, that kind of, I mean, my parents moved to America as well, and I had to kind of communicate American culture. I know you moved here as a child.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:05Adam Friedland?

  But like, beyond being a single dad, he also was raising his kids in this alien culture.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:12Adam Friedland?

  And, you know, there's like a really cute part of your book, where you talk about like where you want to wear like cute clothes.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:19Adam Friedland?

  In high school.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:20Adam Friedland?

  And he was like fine with that, but he's like, but no kissing.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:23Adam Friedland?

  If you kiss, I'm out. I'm out on that. You know?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was out on a lot of things.

• 14:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, me too.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:31Adam Friedland?

  I remember in sixth grade, my parents got me regular underpants. And then sixth grade, you have to start changing for gym class.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:39Adam Friedland?

  And so I asked my parents if I can get boxers. And my dad was like, do you, why would a boy care about his underpants? I was like, I don't know, people are calling me gay. I don't, I don't, I'm not gay. And he's like, do you have body dysmorphia? I'm like, what does that mean? So I had boxers for pajamas, and I used to just.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  They do go from zero to 100.

• 15:01Adam Friedland?

  Immigrant parents?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:03Adam Friedland?

  Nothing makes sense to them, yeah. It's really.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  I do still have a little bit of that, even though like I've been here for over 30 years. I still do have like the little bit of the immigrant parent. My kids are like, okay.

• 15:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Relax. Like, we were joking.

• 15:17Adam Friedland?

  But you had to learn American.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:20Adam Friedland?

  We're hopping around a lot, because I want to get into your story before that. But what are the things that you could kind of educate? Was it the show Baywatch?

• 15:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I could watch anything.

• 15:30Adam Friedland?

  I love TV.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  My dad didn't have any context to like.

• 15:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Was on TV, what was appropriate or not appropriate. And he also had to work a lot, so he wasn't really home.

• 15:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  And so I, I watched like Family Matters and.

• 15:45Adam Friedland?

  Urkel.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:46Adam Friedland?

  You were raised on, Urkel taught you?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I was raised on everything that would come on TV after I got off school, so.

• 15:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  The TV was just on all the time. And like, but, but I didn't speak English and I was struggling. Um, because the only words when I came at the age of 12 that I knew.

• 16:04Adam Friedland?

  Did I do that?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:06Adam Friedland?

  Steve Urkel.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  No, I would learn that.

• 16:08Adam Friedland?

  I know your first words.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  It was hello and shut up.

• 16:10Adam Friedland?

  Hello, shut up.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  And that's, that's fun. Um, when that's the only words you know in sixth grade, so.

• 16:17Adam Friedland?

  That's so cute.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, maybe.

• 16:20Adam Friedland?

  But your teacher wrote something in your yearbook that I thought was adorable. I don't want to misquote it, but it said like, Ilhan, like age 11, hello, shut up, age 12. Hello, my name is Ilhan, nice to meet you.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:33Adam Friedland?

  It's like, it makes me want to cry, it's so cute.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  It went Mr. Miller, it was very, yeah, that was very cute.

• 16:39Adam Friedland?

  So what like, when did, I suppose like, when did you first feel, feel American, you know?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know if there's a moment. If, if, I believe when I could communicate and like navigate life. Um, and feel like, just like one of the other kids. Maybe, maybe when I felt like I was American and then maybe that was like 14, 13, 14.

• 17:09Adam Friedland?

  That's fast.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:10Adam Friedland?

  Because you came here at 11, no?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  12.

• 17:12Adam Friedland?

  12. So in two years, you learned English and.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  I was pretty fluent within like three to six months.

• 17:18Adam Friedland?

  And you learned Baywatch, you learned.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would watch the TV with the, with the captions on.

• 17:24Adam Friedland?

  God, I love TV.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  And then my sister and I would just have the dialogue that they were having on TV.

• 17:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Um, and that was kind, like it helped, I guess, not to develop a strong accent as well.

• 17:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  But, yeah, like I, I, I think much of my English, um, before, you know, I, I got.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Into my formal education was like context based.

• 17:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, all my non-American like family learned, uh, learned it from friends.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:59Adam Friedland?

  And they'd be like, Adam, you're such a chandelier. You're so sarcastic. I'm like, yeah, it's true. I am. I'm not, definitely not a Ross. I wish I was a Joey a little bit sometimes.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Nobody wants to be a Ross.

• 18:12Adam Friedland?

  Ross? What a schmuck.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, no. I also don't know if I could handle a Joey.

• 18:17Adam Friedland?

  Joey? Why, he's so stupid.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Eh, yeah.

• 18:20Adam Friedland?

  Joey's like, you feel like, yeah, like, uh, you could toss him away.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would be too painful to hang out.

• 18:27Adam Friedland?

  It was fun while it lasted, Joey, but you're not, you're no thinker. I need someone more intellectual.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  We could talk for an hour, yeah.

• 18:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  And I'm, I'm a conversationalist, so I'd like people who could hold.

• 18:37Adam Friedland?

  And Joey would be like, I thought you were a Somali-er. Yeah. You're like Somali-er. What's wrong with you, Joey? How do you even have a license to drive? You shouldn't be allowed to vote. You're spoken about so much, but I don't think people understand how much of a journey your life has been. And potentially how it's made you the person you are today.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:58Adam Friedland?

  Which is a person that's like, fuck you, I'm not going anywhere. You know?

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:02Adam Friedland?

  We're born in Mogadishu. How old were you when the civil war broke out?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Eight.

• 19:06Adam Friedland?

  Eight. What were your memories of Somalia before that?

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Well, this is the thing that people usually get upset about because they're like, oh, she just glorifies her childhood. And like, my childhood was pretty normal.

• 19:18Adam Friedland?

  Like not being in a war, that sounds pretty nice. The parts where that weren't in a war.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, part of my, my life. Um, I grew up in a very loud, loving, um, home. I, I, my, my mother, it's, it's fascinating story culturally. Um, in.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  In Somalia, the the tradition is that if you get married, you have two options. Either you have your own home with, you know, your wife.

• 19:53Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Um and your kids. Or if you don't have enough resources, um you move your, the husband moves his wife in with his family.

• 20:04Adam Friedland?

  Uh.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  And.

• 20:05Adam Friedland?

  The in-laws.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:07Adam Friedland?

  It's gotta be annoying.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Well.

• 20:09Adam Friedland?

  Or beautiful.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  It, yeah, it depends on who the in-laws are. Um and my mother was the um first born of her family. And she wanted to help her dad um economically. She wanted to help make sure her siblings were raised well and.

• 20:30Adam Friedland?

  She was an ethnic minority too?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  She was, she's of Yemeni.

• 20:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Um heritage and um and so she was very adamant um that any suitor had to agree to move in with her family.

• 20:46Adam Friedland?

  Oh.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Which was a cultural no-no.

• 20:48Adam Friedland?

  Oh.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Um and so my dad, when supposedly she was, uh he, there was this coffee shop that he would frequent after work. And she would come by that coffee shop um to go home. And he, it was, he said it was love at first sight. He wanted to know who this woman was and um and started to show, he figured out where she worked and started to show up at her job. And kept asking um to talk to her and she wasn't interested. Um but eventually said yes and.

• 21:21Adam Friedland?

  He wore her down.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  He wore her down and um the the, then she made her demand that, you know, if they were to get married, he had to move in. And that was, I suppose, a hard choice for my father, but he was in love.

• 21:36Adam Friedland?

  Her mother?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  With her mother and father and her siblings, I know.

• 21:39Adam Friedland?

  Oh.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Um and and she said yes and I think, you know, as. It would be, it was probably one of the best choices he made. And so he moved in, we were born in my grandfather's house. My grandmother died before I was born, so my mom had younger siblings that she had to help take care of as she was having kids. And so I grew up with my aunts and uncles, you know, along with my siblings, and so it was, it was, it was a full house.

• 22:11Adam Friedland?

  And you were the youngest, too.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  I'm the youngest of seven, yeah.

• 22:14Adam Friedland?

  Wow.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:15Adam Friedland?

  Being a member of Congress and understanding what it's like to be a child in, in a war-torn environment. What was that like as an eight-year-old? I mean, what are your memories of that?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  It's distorting because, like I said, I had a pretty normal childhood. My family was like middle-class, upper-middle-class for Somalia standard in the eighties.

• 22:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  You know, I, again, I lived with my mother before she passed, who had full-time employment. My father, my grandfather, my aunts and uncles, who were all teachers. And so there's multiple salaries coming into our one household. And so we were pretty comfortable. And then, you know, we went from one day just being a normal kid, going to school and playing. And the next day, you know, kids around your age are walking around with rifles and there's bombs dropping.

• 23:17Adam Friedland?

  Thirty-eight-year-olds?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Well.

• 23:20Adam Friedland?

  Thirty-nine-year-olds, shit.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Eight, eight-year-olds, eight, nine-year-olds.

• 23:24Adam Friedland?

  I know, I seem like an eight-year-old.

• 23:27Adam Friedland?

  I look eight, but I'm thirty-nine.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:30Adam Friedland?

  But you have a vote. I mean, I know that we're in a new kind of military operation, whatever the fuck that is. Do memories of like hearing gunfire, do they inform your kind of morality or your understanding of like what, what it means, what war is?

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I do think of war through the lens of someone who survived one.

• 23:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  And I understand that the life, the lasting impacts of.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Of war.

• 24:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  It's the displacement, it's the trauma that you can't get rid of. I mean, I still have PTSD. You know, there is certain environments that that trigger it. And I, you know, it's, I think for a lot of people, especially a lot of people in the United States, unless you've been a service member and been in combat zone, like people can't fully comprehend. So they they're just like, oh, there's there's war and, you know, things get back to normal and everybody's fine. And, you know, like, nobody accounts for the destruction that happens. Nobody accounts for the missed years of education that instability brings,

• 24:46Speaker 01

  the the loss of jobs, the loss of infrastructure, the the loss of your memories, the the connection to to family, to your history. You know, I get a lot of people who are like, yeah, you should be grateful, you know, you you have this beautiful life. I am grateful enormously that I have this beautiful life.

• 25:06Adam Friedland?

  More so.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  But it it comes with a cost. You know, and and I think that a lot of people,

• 25:16Speaker 01

  because we we are in America, a lot of people just see people who come here seeking a new life and just are like, why aren't you just really excited? It's like, yeah, they are excited, but they also have the the the human capacity to miss what was lost.

• 25:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  You know, my my great grandmother, who also lived with us and and helped raise us, I didn't see her for many years after the the war. She passed away without me saying goodbye to her. And I would have loved to have been by her side when she passed away, as I was with my grandfather and father.

• 25:57Adam Friedland?

  I think there's this notion of what a refugee is. In learning about you and researching for this, I kind of. Obviously, there's a xenophobic thing happening. Which is like, for the first time, I was, I'm thirty, or thirty-nine, fuck. I'm thirty-nine, it sounds so bad, I'm forty, and.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  I'm turning forty-four this year, so I don't, I don't know why you hanged up on the thirty-nine.

• 26:20Adam Friedland?

  We're the same age.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I'm older, five, it sounds like.

• 26:24Adam Friedland?

  We're the same age, and you're in congress?

• 26:27Speaker 01

  You would have been in eighth grade when I was graduating high school, so you're okay.

• 26:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, we, you would have, you would have bullied me, probably.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  No, I was very much opposed to bullying.

• 26:36Adam Friedland?

  We would have been best friends, obviously.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would have fought your bullies for you.

• 26:40Adam Friedland?

  No, I didn't have any, because I was so funny.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 26:42Adam Friedland?

  All the bullies were laughing so much at my funny jokes. No, but.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  I thought that's how people become funny, is because they get bullied.

• 26:50Adam Friedland?

  A hundred percent, a hundred percent, wow.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  We're having a therapy session, is that what's happening right now?

• 26:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I'm gonna get on the couch.

• 27:02Adam Friedland?

  Well, no, I, I think there's, obviously, there's, it seems like this is the most xenophobic I've ever seen of the country, but also, there's a notion.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Even more so, yeah, than his first term.

• 27:14Adam Friedland?

  Oh, I mean, it's not him, it's just, it's people, you know, but on the, the other side, I think there's a notion of refugee, like, there's, there's those like posters, like refugees are welcome here. Almost as if like, you know, that like, you're lesser than, kind of, even in, in the liberal sense, like, oh, please come, like, you know, like, come sit down.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  It's well-meaning, though.

• 27:40Adam Friedland?

  It's well-meaning, for sure, but it's, it's like.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Could be patronizing.

• 27:43Adam Friedland?

  Being a refugee has equipped you as an adult, and is a, is.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I mean, my, my resilience is because I was a refugee.

• 27:53Adam Friedland?

  And I, you know, like, you were supposed to come twice, and your security detail was supposed to do an extensive sweep. You had, you had a, like, secret service level of security, because there are multiple people that are incarcerated for plotting assassinations, obviously, we saw at the town hall recently that.

• 28:17Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but you, you fucking charged, you were like.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  I did, I thought he was.

• 28:20Adam Friedland?

  You're like, what, bitch? Yeah. You charged him.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I did the only thing I knew how to do.

• 28:27Adam Friedland?

  What dawned on me, it was like, yeah, because like, she walked to Kenya as an eight-year-old, or a nine-year-old, you know, like.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Close enough, I didn't walk all the way to Kenya, but yes.

• 28:38Adam Friedland?

  Well, you don't say, say walk to them, make it sound worse. What did you, what, you got a, what, you got a piggyback ride?

• 28:47Adam Friedland?

  You went to, what are you, come on, just let me do the.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:51Adam Friedland?

  Let me do the Jewish thing, she walked to Kenya. And then seeing member, Republican candidates for office calling for your execution and seeing the president fixated on you, I think it's fair to say, is that where your bravery comes from, I mean, or am I off base?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  What I mean, and I, I, I think the, in, in the refugee story, I think, or, or any sort of displacement story through traumatic events, is that, is, you know, that old adage of, you know, what doesn't break you makes you stronger, you know, there are people who do end up being broken, right, like, but I think it did the opposite for me, I think it gave me a sense of, like, I survived all of these things that could have destroyed me, could have killed me, and so what is the point of having fear?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  So I, I kind of really don't have the normal sense of, of fear, I mean, I, I have irrational fear of certain things, but I don't have.

• 30:00Adam Friedland?

  Like what, snakes?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  A little like claustrophobic.

• 30:03Adam Friedland?

  Me too.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:04Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think that, like, because we had to hide under beds, you know, when the, when the bombs would drop and, you know, or like try to hold on to the side of a wall just to make sure if it collapsed that you could crawl out, but I think those tight corners, being put in those tight corners, I think maybe helped me develop just a little bit of claustrophobia.

• 30:26Adam Friedland?

  I feel bad for saying me too, but, you know.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, there's different things that happen, right?

• 30:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but I think, you know, when you, when you are. You know, eight and you are crossing multiple checkpoints and people have guns pointed at you. You know, like, you just develop a sense of like, I got through that, you know, what?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  What else could happen?

• 30:55Adam Friedland?

  It reminds me a lot of when my dad wouldn't get me boxer shorts when I was in sixth grade. You know, we've both been-

• 31:01Speaker 01

  How so?

• 31:01Adam Friedland?

  We have different stories and we've been through, I've been through a lot.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very traumatic.

• 31:06Adam Friedland?

  I didn't get, I didn't hit puberty until, uh, basically after 10th grade. So, we've both been through a lot, you know?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Isn't that not the normal age for-

• 31:17Adam Friedland?

  I know your grievance politics. No, it's not the normal age. Somebody in sixth grade, some of them are like, uh, with beards. And we're like, how are we the same grade? Two kids had sex in sixth grade and I went home and cried. I don't know why I'm telling a sitting member of Congress this, but I cried and I remember both their full names still to this day. I cried and said, "I thought we were just kids." Sex?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  You saw them? Did they tell you about it?

• 31:41Adam Friedland?

  What's- I just heard and it was like-

• 31:42Speaker 01

  What's the context of this?

• 31:43Adam Friedland?

  The summer after sixth grade, you could beep both their names. L**** just had sex.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 31:49Adam Friedland?

  And I cried.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  They're gonna sue you.

• 31:52Adam Friedland?

  I thought we were gonna try to kiss.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  They're gonna sue you for sharing this.

• 31:54Adam Friedland?

  So, tell us about Kenya. Did you show with Malik Obama ever? No, I'm just saying. Did you ever link up with Malik Obama? You know who he is? The brother?

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:05Adam Friedland?

  He's like MAGA.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, I don't-

• 32:07Adam Friedland?

  He's a hater.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:08Adam Friedland?

  He's hating from Kenya. He's just tweeting and hating.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  I don't think we would have been in the same region of Kenya, but...

• 32:15Adam Friedland?

  Uh, no. So, your mentor in Kenya was Malik Obama? Is he related to Barack Obama or is that like a common last name? Is it like Kim in Korea? I don't know. Your family got the visa to move to the States and to leave the refugee camp in Kenya. Also, you learned how to scrap. Is that where you learned how to scrap?

• 32:37Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I've got, I've got six older siblings. I've got three brothers, so...

• 32:42Adam Friedland?

  And you've never lost one fight? Could you, you could beat up anyone in Congress?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't want my brothers being upset about this, but yeah, I don't-

• 32:51Adam Friedland?

  You beat they, they butts? I don't know why I said it that way. You beat your brother's butts?

• 32:57Adam Friedland?

  To a little girl?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  We'll leave that to the imagination.

• 33:00Adam Friedland?

  You were little, though.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  I was.

• 33:02Adam Friedland?

  Did you do it in front of girls their age?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:05Adam Friedland?

  Thank God. They would have never lived that down.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  But I rarely fought girls. I mostly fought boys.

• 33:12Adam Friedland?

  She's such a gangster.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  I'm sorry. Girls are scratched, and I didn't want my face scratched.

• 33:19Adam Friedland?

  You're a boxing MMA fan?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  I am a boxing MMA fan.

• 33:22Adam Friedland?

  Do you like, uh, my favorite boxer, Nai- Nai Oya Inoue? Do you like him?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  He's alright.

• 33:28Adam Friedland?

  The monster? You think he's alright? The amount of power at that size.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Okay, alright.

• 33:34Adam Friedland?

  Honestly, he's your size.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  I am a fan of the sport. I don't really have...

• 33:38Adam Friedland?

  You like Bud?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  I don't...

• 33:40Adam Friedland?

  Crawford?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:42Adam Friedland?

  He's the man.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Yes, he's amazing. We watched his last fight.

• 33:45Adam Friedland?

  Against Canelo?

• 33:45Speaker 01

  We just watched Wilder, too.

• 33:47Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah. This talk show is sponsored slash brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a personal, professional website, grow your brand, get paid, all in one place. Squarespace! I love Squarespace. Why do I like it? Because it's the easiest place to make a website. I've been making websites that, uh... I won't say what it is because it's supposed to be anonymous websites, but they have been gaining some traction and...

• 34:27Adam Friedland?

  Your move!

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Anonymous websites?

• 34:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Well, yeah. You know how all websites say "the guy that made it"? Yeah. Uh, Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place. From consultations to events and experiences, showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Get paid on time with professional on-brand invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Get discovered fast with integrated Squarespace SEO tools. Every website is optimized to be indexed with meta descriptions, an auto-generated sitemap, and more. Check out... Squarespace.com/TAFS for a free trial.

• 35:12Adam Friedland?

  And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code TAFS to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com/TAFS for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code TAFS to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. The change in seasons makes you want to declutter and get organized. Spring cleaning, right? Is it spring or summer? In the spirit of spring, I want to declutter my finances. And Monarch helps me stay on track with my money goals. Let Monarch do your financial spring cleaning for you. One dashboard that gets you your entire financial life organized.

• 35:55Adam Friedland?

  No more clutter, no more mess, no more scattered logins. Just accounts, investments, property, and more, all in one place. Get your first year of Monarch for half off, just $50 with the promo code TAFS. Guys, I like Monarch. I've used it a lot. Guys, there's a certain elective surgery that I've been taking a look at for some time. I never thought I'd be possibly someone that was able to afford such a thing. But Monarch helped me stay focused and motivated. Monarch isn't your average personal finance app. Most apps tell you where you're already spent. Monarch goes further. You can set goals, plan for big purchases like my surgery,

• 36:38Adam Friedland?

  and map out your financial future. AI tools built with your financial data, so answers are personalized to you. Monarch's AI assistant is like having a financial advisor in your pocket. You can ask it anything, anytime, and I mean anything. Like, how's my spending changed lately? Or, am I on track to hit my savings goal? Scan a receipt, and Monarch splits up the items and prices them automatically. Then share a link or QR code with your group, so everyone can claim their items and settle up no more calculator app. Use your code TAFS at Monarch.com to get your first year half off, just $50. That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with the code TAFS. Thank you.

• 37:24Adam Friedland?

  The playoffs are here and they're heating up. And there's no better way to cash in on the high-flying hoops action than PrizePicks. America's number uno, number one sports picks app. Every bucket, every dime, every win means more when you're playing on PrizePicks. So don't pass up your next shot with PrizePicks. And get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. My experience, my first time trying the app, was phenomenal. It was simple to get started and it was so available because it was on my phone. Join millions of users and sign up for America's number one sports picks app. Get in on the action. PrizePicks is now available in all 50 states, including California, Texas, Florida, and Georgia.

• 38:08Adam Friedland?

  Download the PrizePicks app today and use your code TAFS to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code TAFS to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. PrizePicks!

• 38:23Adam Friedland?

  You asked your dad why America, why you chose America?

• 38:26Speaker 01

  My grandpa.

• 38:27Adam Friedland?

  Your grandfather.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said America was the only country in the world where you will eventually become an American. And it's interesting because he was very right about that. You know, I don't know too many places where an immigrant can absorb the identity of the new nation they arrive in.

• 39:00Adam Friedland?

  Well, I guess because it's not an ethnicity, right?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:04Adam Friedland?

  Like, German is an ethnicity and a nationality.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  I know a lot of people use Japan as an example, which is crazy.

• 39:11Adam Friedland?

  I mean, I guess that's the thing I always thought was awesome about America.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  I mean, and the people here who would be...

• 39:21Speaker 01

  You know, the inhabitants of what was to become America were not calling themselves that. And so I think that creates the distinction where, you know, like a country like Somalia, the people are Somali. So everyone else that's there, like, they have their own ethnic backgrounds and stories. But there is a core group of people who are just Somali.

• 39:50Adam Friedland?

  As a legislator, that is, that's hijabi, black, and a woman. Do you think that that is kind of, on the surface, why so much negative attention is paid to you? I mean.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I would say less because I'm a woman and black, more because I'm an immigrant and visibly Muslim.

• 40:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. One thing that's odd to me is like, like, the Obama era, right? Like, you seem like a person that, like, it would be the State of the Union or something, and you'd point to the balcony, and you'd be like, Ilhan Omar was a refugee in Kenya, and she came to America, and she worked her way up and became a success, you know? It used to be something that we celebrate.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I think that is the backlash, is because it was celebrated, right? Like, the reason, you know, earlier you asked, like, why does, you know, how does everybody know you? How do you, you know, come to national attention? It's because I was a first for a whole community that, like, was barely recognized as being in the country.

• 40:56Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  And, you know, here I am, less than, you know, a little over 20 years after arriving here as a kid, as a member of Congress.

• 41:04Adam Friedland?

  You're the first African refugee?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  I am the first African born.

• 41:08Adam Friedland?

  You're the first Somali?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:11Adam Friedland?

  You're the first Muslim woman?

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, to wear a hijab.

• 41:14Adam Friedland?

  Because Rashida, Rashida.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  We came in together, yeah.

• 41:16Adam Friedland?

  Rashida, but was it alphabetical?

• 41:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm also the first Muslim not born in the US to ever serve in Congress.

• 41:23Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so Rashida doesn't have that on you?

• 41:25Speaker 01

  No, she's born here.

• 41:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, she's born here.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:27Adam Friedland?

  It's kind of soft of Rashida, yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  I mean, and Keith Ellison was born here, Andre Carson was born here.

• 41:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  And Latifah Simon was born here. So there's four of us that are in Congress.

• 41:37Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  But everybody seems to only remember I'm, I'm the Muslim one that exists there because I'm visibly Muslim, and I'm also an immigrant.

• 41:45Adam Friedland?

  Do you think they're also haters because, like, I don't know, everyone's uglier?

• 41:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 41:52Adam Friedland?

  You see.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  People are beautiful in their own ways.

• 41:54Adam Friedland?

  What, you think Lindsey Graham is beautiful in his own way?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  I'm sure somebody thinks Lindsey Graham is.

• 41:58Adam Friedland?

  You work at an ugly office. Let's be real. Have you seen some of these people? Why don't we let them in charge of us? You can admit it.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  It is not a beauty contest.

• 42:07Adam Friedland?

  Ilhan, okay, listen, I'm not... Look at them. Some of the... Wait, you think Mitch McConnell got there because of pretty privilege? You think...

• 42:18Speaker 01

  You think I got there because of pretty privilege?

• 42:20Adam Friedland?

  No, I think you overcame a lot.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Okay, well, thank you. I appreciate that. I didn't know where we were going with this.

• 42:27Adam Friedland?

  I'm just saying, you've got to work at an ugly place.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  One of my opponents, when I first ran for office...

• 42:33Adam Friedland?

  How busted, was busted.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  No, said that I was gaining traction because I was attractive.

• 42:42Adam Friedland?

  And you were like, "Thanks, but no thanks."

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciated the compliment, but I'm pretty sure it was more than that.

• 42:51Adam Friedland?

  When you got into the house, I think probably our audience's understanding of Nancy Pelosi is kind of probably negative. I don't know, people hate Congress in general. Can you tell us a little bit about, like, you know, what she told you? About being a woman in government? Why are you laughing? I meant to say that... Why is she laughing at me?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  I don't know if she...

• 43:17Adam Friedland?

  Did I say "woman"? How did I say it? Sorry, sorry. I've just never met someone in a Maroon 5 music video with Ellen and Gal Gadot and Millie Bobby Brown. Young Millie.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  No, I mean Pelosi is a fascinating person because, you know, she's an only daughter to a family of like many boys.

• 43:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, also a political fan.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and she had her own...

• 43:55Speaker 01

  You know, I think strengthening, growing up with lots of brothers in the same way that I did. She was very close with her father, like I did. So we had sort of, you know, some of those kind of things in common. A little toughness in us that was intentionally built by our brothers and father. And, you know, I don't take bullshit, she doesn't take bullshit. So it was easy to connect in that way.

• 44:29Adam Friedland?

  She said that they're gonna be mean to you because you're a girl?

• 44:35Speaker 01

  No, but I mean, she's, you know, she also had to denounce me a few times, you know.

• 44:40Adam Friedland?

  Oh, we all denounced you a few times.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so, you know, I think she understood that I didn't care.

• 44:47Adam Friedland?

  I think the first time I heard about you was during the Benjamins tweet. And something that really pissed me off was that I feel like a lot of people online, kind of, people I would expect even, kind of took the bait on that one.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a generational mess.

• 45:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but there was a sole voice that spoke out of the darkness on your behalf.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:18Adam Friedland?

  Online, what was it like to hear that person standing up for you?

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Who's?

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Is that you, Adam? Okay.

• 45:30Adam Friedland?

  I got in big trouble.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Okay, well, we appreciated it.

• 45:33Adam Friedland?

  Well, you're gonna get mad at me about what I said, but I was upset because people are lecturing you on antisemitism. Just to back up, you had a tweet about AIPAC, which is a lobbying organization, right? Which uses a...

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Very toxic lobbying organization.

• 45:50Adam Friedland?

  Sure, we know them, we love them. No, but you had a tweet that was all about the Benjamins, like meaning that money in government.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, like from the song.

• 45:59Adam Friedland?

  Also, the, it's a song. Also, his name is Benjamin Netanyahu. I mean, it worked on three, it was a triple entendre.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Well, the other layers had no factor in, outside of the, yeah.

• 46:11Adam Friedland?

  It was bars.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Outside of the bars, yeah.

• 46:12Adam Friedland?

  And...

• 46:13Speaker 01

  But like I said, I think I was too young for a lot of the people who were... Commenting on it.

• 46:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, they were like Benjamin Franklin would never, yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and then I got upset because you were getting lectured by a certain daughter of a former president. And I did a mean tweet and she found it. I didn't even at her. And so she said that I was an anti Semite. I tweeted Chelsea Clinton is even Jewish, she's just ugly.

• 46:43Adam Friedland?

  Sorry, sorry, sorry.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Is that a real tweet?

• 46:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I'm sorry, but I was upset on your behalf and people are piling on. I regret it and I'm sorry. Jewish comedy, the basis of Jewish comedy is self deprecation. We, I'm just saying we're ugly.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  We have that in common. Somalis are very much like that.

• 47:05Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, we hate ourselves and, you know.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  We don't take ourselves too seriously.

• 47:09Adam Friedland?

  Just seeing that one voice out of the darkness.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it encouraged other people, yeah.

• 47:15Adam Friedland?

  Was that, when did you know that it was gonna be like this? I suppose, like, did you, because that was fairly early on.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  It was my first month, third week.

• 47:27Adam Friedland?

  First month at the job, everyone's telling you that you're Adolf Hitler or something.

• 47:34Adam Friedland?

  Did it dawn, when did it dawn on you it's gonna be like this?

• 47:39Adam Friedland?

  Did it dawn on you then or was it your second month when they said you were Idi Amin or something? Your third month when they said you were Pol Pot or whatever, yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know. I guess like when I first ran,

• 47:57Speaker 01

  you know, I thought of all the horrible things that could happen, wrote a list of 10, 10 worst possibilities. And none of it has actually happened, so.

• 48:10Adam Friedland?

  What were some of the?

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Bad.

• 48:13Adam Friedland?

  Bad ones?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not gonna say it so somebody can do it to me. I'm not putting it out.

• 48:19Adam Friedland?

  You don't want the bad guys to get any ideas. That's a good, that's smart.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like I, you know, so I think I keep a level-headedness because it's not as bad as I thought. Which is kind of crazy because everybody's like, oh my god, this is horrible. And I'm like, eh, it's really not as bad as it could be.

• 48:37Adam Friedland?

  The strange thing to me is that Somalis are such a small ethnic minority in America. And there's a fixation that's surfaced. And Trump was talking about them in 2016, I believe, when he was running.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, he came, he came to Minnesota.

• 48:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  And said, we were there without the permission of Minnesotans and we should all get out.

• 49:00Adam Friedland?

  You didn't ask?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Apparently.

• 49:02Adam Friedland?

  Why Minnesota? What about Arizona or something?

• 49:07Speaker 01

  There are Somalis in Arizona.

• 49:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, the smart ones. Why don't you go up there with the snow? This is as different as possible.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  We're naturally nomads, which culturally means, you know, somebody usually goes to a place and says...

• 49:23Adam Friedland?

  Why are you nomad away from the snow?

• 49:26Speaker 01

  This is a good place for people to live and raise a family. And, you know, my family was settled in Arlington, Virginia. And that's where I went to middle school. And, you know, my older siblings, realizing that I'd missed four years of schooling, really wanted a good education system for me so that I could graduate on time. And, you know, not, you know, get lost in the system. And they were doing research in Minnesota at the time, had really good education system. And so that's how we ended up in Minnesota. But the first family in Minnesota came from San Diego, actually.

• 50:03Adam Friedland?

  Well, it's way nicer there in San Diego, it's fabulous.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  The cost, he had a lot of kids and the cost of living was too much.

• 50:09Adam Friedland?

  Oh, California, don't get me started.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he moved to Marshall, Minnesota.

• 50:14Adam Friedland?

  Oh, it sounds terrible.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Where it was like, he was paying 10% for rent for then what he was paying in San Diego, which meant, you know, he had the freedom to start a business. And I think he's the first Somali millionaire.

• 50:28Adam Friedland?

  I want to talk about Minneapolis. I kind of have this like... Well, first off, I just like, I think it's valuable to hear like, for, obviously, two constituents of yours were killed, right?

• 50:42Speaker 01

  By ICE and CPP.

• 50:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Yeah, I think, first off, like, just tell us like, what you saw transpire in your district and your home city.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the federal occupation of Minnesota was a little scary. We had over four thousand ICE and CPP agents. And it was, you know, masked men, patrolling the streets with machine guns, stopping cars, dragging people out of the cars, breaking windows, arresting people who were telling them that they were citizens, had their documents, they were legally in the United States.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  You know, obviously, they killed Renee Good and Alex Pretty for just monitoring and documenting the brutality that they were witnessing with so many people being disappeared, so many businesses being shut down, lots of empty schools. There was a third, a third of our schools were, had presence of children. It was, it was very, very scary.

• 52:03Adam Friedland?

  What's it like to be a leader of a community that's going like, going through that?

• 52:09Speaker 01

  It's terrifying.

• 52:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  Especially when you, yourself, your, you know, family members are, you know, also part of the targeted group.

• 52:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  And so, you know, you're caring for your constituents and trying to provide as much information as you can and, you know, chasing down people who've disappeared through a maze of a, of a system trying to identify where they are, where they've, they've been taken to, because they were, they were usually disappearing people within three hours from the state. So that was very difficult for us to track people down. And then you're worried, you know, if one of your family members is going to be next.

• 52:55Adam Friedland?

  Do you think the president? Watched the YouTube video and didn't realize that most Somali, the vast, vast, vast majority of Somalis are legally, in Minneapolis are here legally.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that was the most baffling part, right? Because they said-

• 53:14Adam Friedland?

  What percentage of the Somali community are legal? Like ninety-eight percent or something?

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, ninety-eight, ninety-eight percent. No, they said they were going through this mass deportation of Somalis, which is what Operation Metro Search was about.

• 53:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  And, you know, to, you know, they canceled the protective temporary, they announced that they would cancel that, which they couldn't automatically cancel it because those are timed, right? And so it was, for a lot of us, we were like, who is, who are you mass deporting? Because, you know, none of us are deportable.

• 53:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  And that, and that was the thing that was disturbing about it because they were going into these Somali restaurants, Somali businesses, Somali, you know, heavy neighborhoods. And they, they were like basically snatching people only to have to let them out within a few hours. And then they said, okay, so anybody who came in through a refugee status since 2021 will take all of them to Texas and Louisiana. We will re-vet them. And so they did that for a little over four thousand people.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  And then they had to return all of them because their vetting was-

• 54:39Adam Friedland?

  They were here legally.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they already been severely vetted. That vetting, when you're leaving a refugee camp, takes three to five years, sometimes up to ten years. You know, they're, they're checking your bone density. They're, you know, look, it's just, it's a very invasive vetting process. And so it was, again, just a waste of money and a way to terrorize people who are just adjusting to life in America.

• 55:09Adam Friedland?

  I think a lot also about the, I mean largely Latino people getting detained and disappeared.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean we recently, they recently released a report of the 4,000 people they eventually arrested. Less than 3% were Somali.

• 55:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it just, it seems to be like an old man watched a YouTube video and then wanted to arrest a bunch of people that were here legally. And then Latinos suffered the consequences.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. Who come, who come from, you know, countries that are experiencing severe vulnerability. It's our, you know, it's the Venezuelans, it's people from Ecuador, a lot of young people who fled trafficking and gang life in Ecuador are being caught up in it.

• 56:07Adam Friedland?

  You know, your family were lucky enough to get a visa to come here.

• 56:12Adam Friedland?

  You know, do you often think about what your life would be like had you not? When you think about that, does that give you a deeper understanding of those people?

• 56:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it's hard to predict what my life would have been like. It certainly wouldn't be like what it is today. So I, I, I don't know, I can't, I can't predict the future for an Ilhan that doesn't leave that, that camp when, when I did. I've been to other refugee camps in, in Kenya where I've met some kids I knew from the refugee camp I was in. Who are raising kids in that refugee camp.

• 57:00Adam Friedland?

  They're still refugees.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they have, you know, another generation of kids that are born into a refugee camp.

• 57:07Adam Friedland?

  Wow.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  I don't even know what I would have been into at twelve or fifteen.

• 57:14Adam Friedland?

  Do they get baywatch?

• 57:16Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't think so.

• 57:17Adam Friedland?

  Like, when, when you're a kid in school, you learn about periods of history where countries that had laws started taking people from their homes and locking them in cages. You think, when you're a kid, what do you do? And I've been thinking a lot about that nowadays. And I don't know what the answer is. And so, what, what do we do? Like, about the people that are in Florida, you're, you know, in Texas or Louisiana, that are, many of them here legally, that are dying in captivity, that are not being charged with crimes. So what do we do if it's happening now?

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's, it's always the, the, the challenge, right? Because you can, you can think about what you would do, but then you've got the constraints of what the, the legal system that you're living under. People forget that brutality is oftentimes legalized.

• 58:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  And when people say, you know, why didn't you do this? Or why didn't, you know, these people do that? They forget that there was a whole system to make it hard for people to do anything. Because then they would risk their own lives. They would risk their own captivity.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  And, you know, in Minneapolis, we've, we've had people, I, I went to this shopping center that has housing attached to it. And, and I was meeting with the, the business association there. And one of the, one of them explained that the condos above this businesses were choosing to allow some of the workers to stay with them. So they didn't have to travel. That they, you know, they felt safe to just be able to go to work in the same building instead of being exposed to the outside environment.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  And so, you know, there are places like Minneapolis where people have figured out a way to keep their neighbors safe. We had, you know, soccer moms, you know, organizing pickups and drop offs for the neighborhood children. We had block watches where parents organized themselves to take shifts to alert other people when ICE or CPP would be in the neighborhood. And so there, you know, there are ways that people have figured out, but there is the risk, right? You can get killed like Renee and Alex have. And that's, that's the choices that people have to, you know, have to figure out.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  And then it's something that people say to me all the time, like, you're an immigrant, you're risking a lot by being in the forefront of this fight. But to me, it is a choice I consciously make because I would want, if there was a member of Congress that represented me, I would want them doing everything that they could in, in defending me and speaking up for me and not just being worried about what, what happened to them, but what happened to the people that they represent. And so it's a, it's a, it's a loaded thing to think about, but, you know, it's.

• 1:00:45Adam Friedland?

  Oftentimes, we're hearing from the Democrats, like, vote for us in the midterms if you want us, something to happen.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Adam Friedland?

  Right? But, I mean, this was, this was a program under Obama, you know? Child separation was happening under Biden. So do you, as a member of that caucus, have faith in the party were you to be successful in the midterms to like, close the places, shut the places down where people have been sent without due process and are dying?

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Adam Friedland?

  Is that possible?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  I do believe, right? When you, when you think about the mass deportation program under Obama and private detention centers becoming a thing under Obama.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  You now see Democrats finally realizing that we cannot create systems that can be exploited by evil.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  To them, they thought at the time, you know, this was cost-saving, or it was a way to expedite, or to do something in a way to reform the system, but they gave a playbook to the most evil, people like Stephen Miller, who have now allowed these detention centers, and even with the first Trump administration, where people dying in there and covering up, it's normal.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  And sometimes being killed in these detention centers without accountability, where you can have masked agents, and we're now just begging for the bare minimum of like, can you go back to what is actually legal, required for you to do? And so I do see now when Democrats say, put us back in charge, that it is about reining this in. It is about recognizing that we've allowed for a system that could be abusive to be abusive. And we have Republicans right now who are in charge,

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  who are refusing to exercise any of the checks and balances that are within their purview. And so Democrats are not asking for much. All they're asking for is allow us to at least have a check and balance, which, you know, at this moment, I think it's a huge selling point, because it just feels like we are living with a one-man rule, and that's not, you know, what America is supposed to be.

• 1:03:39Adam Friedland?

  I guess, I'll close with this one last thing, alright?

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  I know that answer, like, it's not the most satisfying thing, but it's, you know, with the-

• 1:03:49Adam Friedland?

  A lot of them, a lot of your boys suck, don't they?

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  But it's just, it's like, it's-

• 1:03:54Adam Friedland?

  No, but you're, you're a rock.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  We can't pass these great policies because obviously we have Trump for president in the next two years. Even if we were to win the majority, but what we can do is make it difficult for him to have this one man rule.

• 1:04:11Adam Friedland?

  Have you met him?

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:04:13Adam Friedland?

  No?

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:04:14Adam Friedland?

  What did you say to him, if you meet him?

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  I'm not sure. It depends, it changes by the day.

• 1:04:20Adam Friedland?

  What would you say, just right now? What are you feeling right now? Let's say, "I'm Trump. Hey, what's up? I'm Trump. I've been telling people to kill you."

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I might, like, actually curse him out in person.

• 1:04:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. You want to say the words?

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  At this moment.

• 1:04:34Adam Friedland?

  Say the cusses.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna say it.

• 1:04:35Adam Friedland?

  We'll beep them.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  No, it's okay.

• 1:04:37Adam Friedland?

  Alright. We'll cut it. Just say the cusses. Congresswoman, just say the cuss- I've never heard, we don't, we don't allow cussing on the show, but this is one time. I think we can make an exception. Let's hear those cusses.

• 1:04:54Adam Friedland?

  Alright, you share your story. I think you are kind of an example of what is great about America. You can make a success of yourself. You could go to college at the Mall of America. How did you, how did you find out that the college at the Mall of America wasn't on the up and up? Were you in a sorority?

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:05:17Adam Friedland?

  I heard that you rushed Victoria's Secret, but you got into hot, you got into Hot Topic. You were with the weird girls, the weird girl sorority.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  Absolutely not.

• 1:05:27Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, me and the brothers at Hollister, we were fuck, we were doing beer bongs. You went to college at a mall?

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Adam Friedland?

  You might be the first in Congress, mall college.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Called the National American University.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  It was, it was one of those, you know, exploitive.

• 1:05:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Jared Kushner owned it.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, schools and they.

• 1:05:52Adam Friedland?

  Kushner and Whitkoff got this? You think in Pakistan?

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  It's quite possible.

• 1:05:56Adam Friedland?

  I think they got this.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  I don't think so, no, no. I have no, no faith.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  But it was, it was one of those like schools where they, you know, preyed on.

• 1:06:05Adam Friedland?

  Immigrants?

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  First time, yeah, first time college.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  You know, like you'd be the first one to go to college in your family.

• 1:06:15Adam Friedland?

  Did you live on campus?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  Or veterans. No, no.

• 1:06:18Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  And that was the selling, that was the selling point because it was like, they had this jingle. It was like, one night, one day, Saturday's all right.

• 1:06:28Adam Friedland?

  How did you not know that this place was on the up and up? They have an amusement park.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, I'd worked at the mall. I could go do my.

• 1:06:39Adam Friedland?

  Orange shoes?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Leather Limited.

• 1:06:40Adam Friedland?

  Where?

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  Leather Limited.

• 1:06:42Adam Friedland?

  What is that? That sounds horny.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  It was a.

• 1:06:45Adam Friedland?

  That sounds haram to me.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  No, it was, it was a leather. It was a leather jacket store.

• 1:06:51Adam Friedland?

  Oh, nice.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  They sold leather jackets and bags and purses.

• 1:06:54Adam Friedland?

  Nice. You got employee discounts still or no?

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  I did and I bought my dad like a lot of leather stuff.

• 1:07:00Adam Friedland?

  A full like harness?

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  No, he had one of the leather jackets with the fur, the winter leather jacket with the fur.

• 1:07:08Adam Friedland?

  Daddy.

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I got him like a suitcase for him to.

• 1:07:13Adam Friedland?

  Is he proud of you?

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  My, my dad passed away. He was very proud of me.

• 1:07:16Adam Friedland?

  Was he proud of you? I mean, was he proud of you?

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, he was very proud.

• 1:07:20Adam Friedland?

  I like, I like the section of your book where he said that it's. Political science is a stupid.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  That was my grandpa.

• 1:07:27Adam Friedland?

  Was that your grandpa?

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Adam Friedland?

  Sorry.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  My grandfather was like, "Politics is something you do, it is not something you study."

• 1:07:33Adam Friedland?

  He's right, it's stupid. I studied it too. What a waste.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree, I don't think I would let one of my kids actually study poli science.

• 1:07:43Adam Friedland?

  No, it's moronic, yeah. The science.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Just do it, just do it.

• 1:07:47Adam Friedland?

  I have some beakers and buns and burgers.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  The science is in the action of doing politics.

• 1:07:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  But I eventually graduated from a school called NDSU.

• 1:07:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  In Fargo, North Dakota.

• 1:07:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Carson Wentz.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Go Bisons.

• 1:08:01Adam Friedland?

  Carson Wentz.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, the football team.

• 1:08:04Adam Friedland?

  Whatever.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  They had a great football team.

• 1:08:07Adam Friedland?

  Were you there with Carson Wentz?

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  I mean, you know I wasn't hanging out with football.

• 1:08:12Adam Friedland?

  No, you were with the nutrition club.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I also had two young kids to take care of, so. I don't really do much hanging out in college because I was a young mom.

• 1:08:22Adam Friedland?

  So you would bring your kids to the...

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in a lot of clubs and would bring them with me.

• 1:08:28Adam Friedland?

  You would take them to the club.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Oh, like student clubs.

• 1:08:33Adam Friedland?

  You would go to the club with your kids. This, she's out of control. Wait till Tucker gets away. Someone said something to me, I spoke to people that know you.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:47Adam Friedland?

  And someone said something to me that's stuck with me.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:51Adam Friedland?

  And granted, I did this five months ago and then two blizzards.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Where are you guys finding these people that know me?

• 1:08:58Adam Friedland?

  Who?

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Where are you people finding these people who know me?

• 1:09:01Adam Friedland?

  My AIPAC guys have got me, got me a couple of contacts.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  I don't think those people know me.

• 1:09:06Adam Friedland?

  Someone that knows you has said to me that every day for you is lived truly, not in like a self-help book way, but truly like it could be your last. And that's stuck with me.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  Who's this person?

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I think we should. I don't know if that's such a great, you know. I think we should all live every day as if, you know, it might be our last day.

• 1:09:40Adam Friedland?

  But not all of us are... Not all of our interns have to go to therapy because they're picking up the phone all day.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't go to therapy.

• 1:09:51Adam Friedland?

  No, your interns...

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 1:09:53Adam Friedland?

  You gotta send them to therapy, I'll tell you that.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I...

• 1:09:56Adam Friedland?

  Can you imagine what they're hearing?

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  I have staff that have been... Majority of my staff has been with me since I'd gotten to Congress.

• 1:10:05Adam Friedland?

  You're such an immigrant mom.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  And...

• 1:10:07Adam Friedland?

  Therapy is... You're anti-therapy.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  I am not. But what I am saying... What I am saying is that I have people who naturally are like, "This is crazy." And I'm not gonna let it like... I'm not gonna internalize any of this stuff. And we mainly feel bad for the crazy people who call into our office and spend that much time thinking about us. So, you know, I don't... I like to believe, just like me...

• 1:10:38Adam Friedland?

  I hate them.

• 1:10:38Speaker 01

  Everyone in my office is just like, "These people are crazy." Like, I don't think they take it home with them.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Because if they did, I think a lot of them would have left the office. And we rarely have people who quit our office.

• 1:10:53Adam Friedland?

  I think it's, if you'll allow me, I think it's just really great to see an example. It's a shitty time of one person who, despite all this, is just like, "Fuck you, I have every right to be here as much as you do." And I don't think that... I mean, I think it's a testament to your resilience. I genuinely... Me going through that? Adam Friedland is... We should... I wanna send him to Guantanamo. What the hell?

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  What would you have done if the president every day was being like...

• 1:11:33Adam Friedland?

  I would have laughed at all his jokes.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Okay, there you go.

• 1:11:35Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that's what you do when you have a boss that's an asshole but not very smart. You say, "That was hilarious, sir." Yeah, I would have gotten away with doing no work for 40 years.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:48Adam Friedland?

  At the government.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  I mean, if he was saying the stuff he says, like, about me, about you.

• 1:11:54Adam Friedland?

  I would have, uh, I don't know.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  It wouldn't just be like, okay, this man is crazy.

• 1:11:59Adam Friedland?

  No, I, I, I think, I think it's really important for someone to say, I have every right to be here.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:06Adam Friedland?

  You know.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  What's he gonna do?

• 1:12:09Adam Friedland?

  Um, he's gonna drive these, these nuts those nuts, you know?

• 1:12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Adam Friedland?

  Someone called me after Kirk.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:17Adam Friedland?

  And they said, well, do you have security? I'm like, what does this have to do with me? Me?

• 1:12:23Adam Friedland?

  For Charlie? If someone did that for Charlie, and they got, I was the, me?

• 1:12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, do you do one of those, like, come debate me things?

• 1:12:32Adam Friedland?

  No, I don't wanna talk to kids. They're terrible. What is he, yell, he yells at, he yelled at babies the best. We'll cut that.

• 1:12:44Adam Friedland?

  Uh, I really appreciate your time. I've been really excited about this one.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  Likewise.

• 1:12:48Adam Friedland?

  And, uh, did you have fun?

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:12:50Adam Friedland?

  Okay, we're gonna do another cooking demonstration.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the tea turned out great, if I say so myself.

• 1:12:56Adam Friedland?

  Okay, well, you were complaining about the cloves.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  They turned out okay. A little tangy because we didn't get to crush them.

• 1:13:03Adam Friedland?

  Oh my god, oh my god, you can't win with her, guys, Ilhan Omar, everyone.

• 1:13:08Adam Friedland?

  It's been a pleasure. I hope you enjoyed it.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:13:11Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. Better than Hassan?

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Is there a competition?