The Lost Episodes: MAHMOUD KHALIL

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

• 0:00Adam Friedland?

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• 0:17Speaker 01

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• 0:22Speaker 01

  there's this.

• 0:25Speaker 01

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• 0:53Adam Friedland?

  Welcome back to the lost episode series, Adam Friedland Show. This next episode, we're really happy we can release it for various reasons. We couldn't for a long time, and now we got the green light. My guest is Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil, of course, was a grad student at Columbia who worked as a negotiator between the administration and the Palestine Solidarity Movement. And early last year, he was detained by ICE and held for over 100 days. His wife was American. She was eight months pregnant, and he was a legal permanent resident. Despite his release, his court case and his fight against his deportation continues,

• 1:34Adam Friedland?

  and he continues to challenge the government's broader attacks on free speech in court. I think it's a really interesting, important conversation. I really hope you guys like it. Season three, Adam Friedland Show, comes out in two weeks. Enjoy, guys. I'll be in Denver, New York City, Town Hall, whatever.

• 1:55Adam Friedland?

  Ladies and gentlemen, Mahmoud Khalil.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 2:02Adam Friedland?

  How are you?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Good, good.

• 2:03Adam Friedland?

  Why do they put the mic pack on your pocket like that?

• 2:05Speaker 02

  I did, actually.

• 2:06Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you did? No, no, hide it. Create the illusion.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  It's fine.

• 2:09Adam Friedland?

  Okay, sorry. No, can we not start with an insult that I'm insulting you?

• 2:14Speaker 02

  No worries.

• 2:15Adam Friedland?

  All right. So this is, like I said, I'm being set up. I'm a goofball, and this is... I had your team send a list of things that could be funny. And I'm sorry, guys.

• 2:31Adam Friedland?

  I'm sorry. You need liars. You need liars. He loves plants, but he kills them all? That's hilarious.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  I don't kill them all.

• 2:42Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so they're shitting on you?

• 2:45Speaker 02

  No, no, I think my...

• 2:46Adam Friedland?

  In one of the worst... You're a civil rights hero, and they're telling you, say that you kill all your plants?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  No, Noor, she... Noor, my wife, like she's holding a grudge against me because I killed her orchid.

• 2:57Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so they talk to your wife about all the things that are bad about you. Great. You're an old man in a 31-year-old's body. Haven't you been through enough? Why are they writing this? Is this a roast list? Wait, your team's idea... Listen, you have 30 lawyers?

• 3:14Speaker 02

  I mean, on one case, but...

• 3:16Adam Friedland?

  On one case? So how many?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  I have like seven, six active cases now. It's a lot to keep track of, but at least 30 on the main case.

• 3:26Adam Friedland?

  30, and then publicity, you have like 50.

• 3:30Adam Friedland?

  You got a book deal?

• 3:31Speaker 02

  I do.

• 3:32Adam Friedland?

  Are you signed at an agency?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, with Metropolitan, with Macmillan.

• 3:38Adam Friedland?

  Mac Miller?

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Macmillan.

• 3:39Adam Friedland?

  Mac Miller. Okay, that was a good joke. That was a funny... Oh, that's a lot. Do you have an agency? You should start, maybe acting a little bit.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  I mean, no, I already have enough now, so...

• 3:52Adam Friedland?

  You have as many lawyers as Justin Bieber right now, and publicity people...

• 3:56Speaker 02

  But for nothing, to me, like I did nothing wrong.

• 3:58Adam Friedland?

  For going to college.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Literally, like nothing, like every time I think about it, I was like, why do I need all these lawyers? Like, literally, nothing.

• 4:05Adam Friedland?

  I think we should now stop the goofing, and no more laughing, guys.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  No, anything else like?

• 4:14Adam Friedland?

  Oh, I mean, these are atrocious ideas. You guys need to just lie. You need to be like, he's the one of two people that know how to flip and sing, besides Benson Boone. Let's get into you. Palestine has been a seminal issue of... And it's really happened in the last three years. What's happened to you in the last year?

• 4:33Speaker 02

  So basically, in March 2025, like about a year from now, the Secretary of State designated me as a foreign policy threat. For what? I don't know, like...

• 4:47Adam Friedland?

  Foreign policy?

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Foreign policy threat, and to me, that was...

• 4:51Adam Friedland?

  You thought you'd change their mind or something?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Doesn't look like it, you know? Like, we're still sending more and more weapons and money to Israel.

• 4:59Adam Friedland?

  But what is a foreign policy threat? Do you know, like, is it a... It's just like a statute from...

• 5:05Speaker 02

  It's from the 52, actually. It was brought, or it was used to prevent Jewish immigration into the country. So they want to prevent, you know, the communists from coming into the country. So they came up with this statute in 1952. It has never been used against, like, someone like me since ever, since 1952. It was mainly used to prevent people from coming in, not to actually prosecute people here in the country. But to be honest, it's just like, to me, it's all like, for me, it's a movie this past year. Like, why I'm in this, in this situation? I literally did, I consider myself like, did nothing.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  And it's when, when I compare like, you know, my activism to the other kids at school or to the other students, I'm like, you know, I'm...

• 5:53Adam Friedland?

  You're throwing them under the bus. Let's hear about these other terrible, bad kids.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  I was, I was literally on the very moderate side, like that. They sent me to negotiate, you know? Like, we don't need you here, like, go negotiate, so...

• 6:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, so to tell, to tell your story, for those who don't know, you were at Columbia as a graduate student. You lived in student housing?

• 6:14Speaker 02

  I did, I did live in student housing.

• 6:16Adam Friedland?

  With your wife?

• 6:17Speaker 02

  With my wife, and...

• 6:18Adam Friedland?

  Pregnant wife at the time?

• 6:19Speaker 02

  We were expecting a child in April. I was detained in March. So I was literally for that. I graduated in...

• 6:27Adam Friedland?

  What day was your child born?

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Today, actually, like on April 21st.

• 6:32Adam Friedland?

  So you, you went down to Louisiana to miss the birth, and now you're here on the Adam Friedland Show? I think that kid, it's a, it's a first birthday, though. It's usually people just standing around like a baby. Yeah, they don't know anything. Obviously, campus activism was a hot topic, which is like, first of all, why the fuck? They were acting like at UCLA in Columbia, they invented kids protesting. The most normal thing in the world.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  I mean, that's what you do, especially at Columbia, where since the 60s, they, they also occupied Hamilton Hall, the same building that the students recently occupied. The 80s, they did the same.

• 7:12Adam Friedland?

  In the 70s, they bombed academic buildings, right? Like, I mean, I'm not saying that, like, I'm just saying that this is...

• 7:18Speaker 02

  No, I mean, this is, this is the tradition of, especially at Columbia. And these students who were, I mean, most of them 17 to 19 years old, 17 to 20 years old. They were very courageous. They refused to remain silent while they are seeing all these atrocities happen on their phones, while Columbia University was gaslighting them about what they are talking about. And these students, they had three simple demands. Like, the first one is to disclose Columbia's investments, because Columbia has...

• 7:51Adam Friedland?

  For their endowment.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Has a large endowment, over $14 billion. They are the largest real estate owner in the city of New York. And the second one is to divest any investments in weapon manufacturers and violating human rights. And the third one is to boycott Israeli academic institution.

• 8:15Adam Friedland?

  They had a relationship with Tel Aviv University?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  That's one, but also they are opening sort of a satellite campus in Tel Aviv, Columbia's global center in Tel Aviv, where they have another one in Amman, like less than 70 miles away from that. So all these are political statements, like to, to really legitimize Israel. And this is what the students said, like, me as a Palestinian, I pay Columbia's tuition, but I can't go to Israel. Israel would not allow me. You mentioned that you lived in Israel for, for a year. I'm not allowed to even visit, and my grandparents were born there.

• 8:52Adam Friedland?

  In Tiberias.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  In Tiberias, and they were there for generations.

• 8:57Adam Friedland?

  It was a place where, actually, it had a... Jerusalem in Tiberias, from what I understand, had an indigenous Jewish population prior to Zionism. It was a place where Muslims and Jews lived together.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  My grandmother tells me about their Jewish neighbors. Like, it wasn't that something, you know, that's out of, out of the ordinary. No, it was like normal. Like, she tells me, she speaks some Hebrew, like very, very, very basic, to, because they were working together. Mostly, they were farmers, like they're the Jewish population there and even the Arab population. So there was that relationship.

• 9:33Adam Friedland?

  They say it's a very spiritual place, Tiberias.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  I haven't been, I mean, all the stories I get are from my grandmother.

• 9:40Adam Friedland?

  But it's the only stories for you.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  So...

• 9:43Adam Friedland?

  In a simpler sense, I hear you explaining just like an obvious thing. Like, it's the most obvious thing in the world. At a university, academic institution, they have, there are kids that want to make a, kind of have a tangible effect on something that is going on, and it's something related to you being Palestinian, right?

• 10:07Speaker 02

  No, absolutely.

• 10:08Adam Friedland?

  Or it's something related to...

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Look, the student movement was composed of hundreds of thousands of students across the United States, you know?

• 10:16Adam Friedland?

  They were doing Shabbat in the encampment?

• 10:18Speaker 02

  There was Shabbat, I attended my first Seder.

• 10:21Adam Friedland?

  They should have toned it down a little bit. It's a little bit much to do a Seder in the encampment. Just relax, okay? We're sorry.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  But like, but also they wanted to target me is because I'm Palestinian. That's that's first. But also to chill the speech of others, like the ones who like, look what we did with this person. So if you speak about Palestine, we will do the same for you. No matter if you did no, no, no crime. Like now we are a year and one month after my, my arrest. They haven't brought any evidence that I committed any crime. Zero.

• 10:55Adam Friedland?

  Is it the case that they're kind of burying you in legal procedural red tape?

• 10:59Speaker 02

  So this is, this is the main immigration case where they're trying, because the immigration system is fully controlled by the administration, like 100%. It is like kangaroo court in terms of what decisions they can make, how they make them, the rules, there is like, it's not a Title III or a federal court. So what they're trying to do is to tell the federal court, you can't touch his case because it's under the immigration process. And this is why they brought me into them. Because a day before my arrest, a legal case later showed against the administration that they themselves, like DHS and the White House, they admitted that they don't have any grounds to detain me, except for this ruby determination. So they looked into fraud. They looked into everything.

• 11:44Speaker 02

  They couldn't, they couldn't bring anything. So they were like, oh, but there is this statue from 1952. Let's try it on him.

• 11:52Adam Friedland?

  To contextualize it, you were functioning as a negotiator. One thing that's, that's apparent about you from talking on Friday and right now is that you're calm, right? Like protests could get kind of hot, right? And they select, is that why they selected you?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, mostly just because like I was literally like the one, at first like I was older than most of the people there. I already had experience in diplomacy. I worked for the British Embassy in Beirut. I already had 10 years of experience when I came, of work experience when I came to Colombia. That's one. But the second thing is because like I can meet someone in the middle. Like I'm not, you know, like I, the students, of course, and the faculty, they trust me. They trust my, my judgment, but also that I'm not there just like, you know, to, to talk. No, I want to get results. I can meet people in the middle. I'm usually calm. I'm very calm, like more than I should be maybe.

• 12:52Adam Friedland?

  Well, no, it's, it seems like it's, I think what's necessary is that like understanding what, how, how you became calm. I mean, I think like you were born in Syria, is that correct?

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I was born and raised in Syria in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Syria.

• 13:15Adam Friedland?

  You were third generation?

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Third, second. So my parents were born in Syria and then me, my grandparents were born in Palestine. So I was born and raised there. I stayed there until the age of 18, when the Syrian uprising started in 2011. I was 16. I participated in the uprising and in 20, in 2011.

• 13:40Adam Friedland?

  It's really cute. You did the five minute protest?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  It's like even less because, and that's why I tell people here, like the risk of protesting in Syria was you getting shot, not you getting deported.

• 13:52Adam Friedland?

  We're gonna do a 30 second protest.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  You just like, you get the film, they film you and you upload it. But then the regime arrested two of, two of my friends or the people who I was organizing with. So the second day, I fled to Lebanon.

• 14:08Adam Friedland?

  Did your parents come with you?

• 14:09Speaker 02

  No, no, I was, I was alone. Like actually, it was on my 18th birthday that I, like a week after my 18th birthday that I fled to Lebanon. Because I had to do it like within, you know, like my friends were arrested on January 11 at night, January 13 in the morning, I was in Beirut. And, and there, of course, like in Beirut, I did not speak any English back then. I was supposed to start studying aviation engineering at the university in, in Syria. So I couldn't do that. And in Lebanon, I had to literally do construction work for six, seven months until I, you know,

• 14:52Speaker 02

  I found, I found a decent job that then they offered me a scholarship to go to school to learn English.

• 14:58Adam Friedland?

  I like this construction work angle for the, for the PR people. I think, yeah, he's a master, you, you're, you know, just like our Lord and Savior, old JC.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  No, no, I enjoyed it.

• 15:12Adam Friedland?

  I like that.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  I was a painter and enjoyed, I enjoyed being like painting walls and like going to houses and it's just like, because at that point I did not want to add like more stress to my, on my family who was still stuck in Syria, couldn't move to Lebanon. Because Lebanon compared to Syria is very expensive, like insanely expensive compared to Syria. So like a hundred dollar in Syria can survive you for a couple of weeks. In Lebanon, two days. So absolutely my family like.

• 15:43Adam Friedland?

  So what's it like living in New York, though?

• 15:45Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I love it. I mean.

• 15:49Adam Friedland?

  But it's gotta be like, you gotta be like, this is crazy.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  It's absolutely great.

• 15:53Adam Friedland?

  This is insane.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Because in Lebanon, I lived in Shatila Camp, which is one of the most, you know, like underprivileged communities, like Palestinian community.

• 16:02Adam Friedland?

  And also there was a massacre.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  And there was a massacre committed by Israel and their Lebanese allies back in 82.

• 16:10Adam Friedland?

  The phalange.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  A phalange. So it's, you know, like I went through all of that. So to me, what I'm now is just like another, an extension of all the misery that I went through all my life and.

• 16:24Adam Friedland?

  Is that, that's why you're calm? I guess that's the point that I get to.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  I believe that this has contributed to, to my calmness. But also like I come from a family that went through a lot, like since before my, my birth. Like my, my grandparents, when they were kicked out of Tiberias, they lived in a tent for a number of years and then they died in a mud house. So my dad was born in a mud house. My parents were, were married in a mud house. My, my mom's like brothers like also were, were imprisoned by Israel for, for a number of years. So it's not that, you know, it's like my story is unique. It's just like an extension of that.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  But even like in 1870, France exiled my grand, my mom's grand, grandparent from Algeria, from French Algeria to the Ottoman, Ottoman Palestine. So it sort of runs in, in the family, unfortunately, all this like exile.

• 17:32Adam Friedland?

  So you paid your way through university in Lebanon?

• 17:35Speaker 02

  I did. So I was basically working full time.

• 17:38Adam Friedland?

  What was it like being 18 and just like alone?

• 17:40Speaker 02

  I mean, it was, I loved it, you know, like with the family.

• 17:45Adam Friedland?

  You party?

• 17:46Speaker 02

  And then, yeah, partying and going around. Beirut is the best city for partying.

• 17:49Adam Friedland?

  It's the Paris of the Middle East, they say.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  Exactly. So I honestly like, liked that part.

• 17:53Adam Friedland?

  You had the beach?

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Yep. Beach, mountain and.

• 17:56Adam Friedland?

  It's beautiful.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  But I mean, the first, the first year was really tough because I was basically trying. Because in Lebanon, everyone speaks English or French and, you know, I'm, I'm that guy who.

• 18:09Adam Friedland?

  So how good at English did you get? If it's like, if people are multilingual. How did you meet your wife, I guess?

• 18:15Speaker 02

  So when I was in Lebanon, I was working basically, I was running schools and refugee centers for Syrian refugees. And one of the programs we had is to bring international volunteers to teach English to refugee kids in Lebanon. So Noor, my wife, who's American, born and raised in Flint, came on one of these trips to teach English. So we met at this program, basically back in 2016.

• 18:46Adam Friedland?

  How did, did, how did you, how did you, like, how'd you, how'd you get, fall in love? I don't know. It seems like she was the one that was like, we're getting married.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah. So we spent like a month, it was a group of 30 people, so mostly, mostly Americans. So we spent all that time and at that time, like I was running, I was running the program. So I did not have time really, you know, to.

• 19:16Adam Friedland?

  Oh, that was.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. But then afterwards, like we talked, we met like a few months after and I mean.

• 19:22Adam Friedland?

  You started as friends and then?

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, like a few months and we were like, we were serious. But then, you know, long distance for, for a couple of years. But I got a scholarship to Columbia in 2018 to do a short course, an executive course at Columbia. So I did that.

• 19:43Adam Friedland?

  What was that, to be like a CEO or something?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  It was, yeah, it was like something emerging leaders in nonprofit management, something like that.

• 19:51Adam Friedland?

  Is your desire was to be like, to work as a, like in?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  So my desire was most of the time like work and.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  International like affairs, I would say, in public service. But particularly like to represent Palestine. Because I always like growing up when reading about Palestine, I felt that there is that vacuum of Palestinians.

• 20:16Adam Friedland?

  Like to work at the UN potentially?

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so I, before my arrest, I had a job offer at the UN, like to be a policy advisor with an organization.

• 20:25Adam Friedland?

  How does it feel like they've kind of let you guys down?

• 20:27Speaker 02

  I mean, they fucked themselves.

• 20:29Adam Friedland?

  They've let you guys down a lot.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  A lot, a lot.

• 20:32Adam Friedland?

  You're gonna go to the place where the, like, I don't know.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  I mean, again, like, that was, I felt that this is it all I could play.

• 20:39Adam Friedland?

  You could try and do something from within.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Exactly, not necessarily from within, it's just, you know, we, the fight for Palestine is, requires every avenue. And that was an avenue that I felt I can contribute to. But also, like, more importantly, like, I wanted to be a voice for my people. I felt that, especially in the United States and following Edward Said's journey here, because that was like the only example. I mean, we come from a very different like backgrounds, you know, like Edward Said and me. But like, I felt like, you know, there is so much need for, for Americans and the people just like to hear Palestinians.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Because we always hear others talk about Palestinians, what they want, what, who they are, but they don't.

• 21:29Adam Friedland?

  We talked about this on the phone, right? And like, I think, in a tangible sense, like, the kids at Columbia wanted to do something that was tangible. I think Palestine has obviously been a seminal issue, especially for the younger generation that has emerged only recently in the States. But does it feel sometimes like a little bit of that, a little bit, sometimes advocacy could be disconnected from actual Palestinians that are actually dying?

• 22:00Speaker 02

  It's good to be, yeah, absolutely. I wouldn't say it's malicious or any of that. I think it's just like, there isn't too many Palestinian voices here, but also, to center Palestinians here, it's a bit tough, because a lot of people here, they, they only read the theory of resistance, the theory of what Palestine, who Palestinians are. Like, at Columbia, there were only, like, I think, less than 10 students who came from Palestine, actually from Palestine. So it was so difficult, and these students tend to be very risk averse, because they have so much to lose.

• 22:34Adam Friedland?

  I can imagine, yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm a living example of that, compared to, you know, like, other kids in, or other students in school who have some sort of privilege. They can get arrested, or they can risk arrest, they can, you know, for them, it might be like Palestine is only like a few years, but to me, it's like, my life is Palestine. So the dynamic is, is a bit complicated when it comes to that, but I don't think it's malicious. It's just like, also, everything happened so fast.

• 23:09Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Like, and the encampment happened about a year and a half after October 7. But also before the encampment, like, actually, no, less, sorry, six months. It was in April 2024, so, yeah, six months, so, like, it was so fast, like, so everything happened so fast, and you, you find these students being put on this national, international spotlight in a second, like, when the encampment happened, and, and no one of the, like, none of them is media trained, none of them, like, no, like, what they care about is to actually get the university to divest, to get the university not to use their tuition fees to kill, like, people, so.

• 23:53Adam Friedland?

  They've only known Netanyahu as the prime minister, right? Seventeen years?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:59Adam Friedland?

  So their entire lives, like, you know, they've only known.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  I mean, before him was Bennett, who's more.

• 24:04Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Bennett, yeah. They've had some goofballs, yeah, they've had some real wacky guys.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  But also, like, these, these students, they can't see the injustice and the hypocrisy, like, in daylight, like, they're being, you know, they were advocating for the rights of Palestinians, and they were.

• 24:21Adam Friedland?

  Well, I think you could see the war now, right?

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they were seeing, like, the killings, but, but you see the politicians, you see the university gaslighting them, like, no, this is not happening, or like, it's, and to them was, that was shocking, that this level of hypocrisy and level of standards can happen in daylight. That's why they, I mean, they, they lost faith in, in the administration. No one wanted to actually talk to the Trump, to the Columbia administration.

• 24:49Adam Friedland?

  So how did you become a negotiator, like?

• 24:52Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, I'm a bureaucrat, so, like, I come from, I, I come from, like, you know, a history of bureaucracy work, I mean, I worked for the British, who's like the oldest bureaucracy in, in the world, so.

• 25:04Adam Friedland?

  They love it.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  I would just say, like, and, you know, just like email the administrators since, since even before October 7, because anti-Palestinian racism is institutionalized at Columbia before October. Like, when I first joined Columbia in, in January 2023, I joined a Palestinian group there, and we wanted to invite Human Rights Watch, we wanted to invite BDS, like, just to talk about, that's what you do in international affairs at school, you know, like.

• 25:35Adam Friedland?

  You have speakers.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  You bring experts. But because it's about Palestine, Columbia would put us in a very long process of approval of, just like, you know, they don't want us to do any of this.

• 25:49Adam Friedland?

  But you guys had a bureaucrat.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Exactly, so I was like, you know, I got it.

• 25:53Adam Friedland?

  They had a bureaucrat, yeah, I know paperwork.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  So I would email them, I would fill the forms, I would read, I would read the, the policy manual, all of that, and I would go back to them, and so I established this reputation of being communicative with, with administration.

• 26:11Adam Friedland?

  And also being Palestinian.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  So that's, that's also a part, like.

• 26:14Adam Friedland?

  And also just being, you're just who, the sense I get of who you are as a person, which is just like, not someone that is a hothead, like, you're kind of like someone that can maintain your cool. I feel like you don't have to just explain any of this shit. I think that it's just like, you're, you're Palestinian, and there's a war in Palestine, you're seeing people dying, and there's protests on your campus, you know, like, the, the history.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  This is part of the distraction here that they want to create, that they want to distract, to distract us from what's really happening in Palestine.

• 26:49Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  From all the atrocities, from the US complicity in sending weapons, and just like to care about, you know, what "From the River to the Sea" means, what to "Globalize the Antifa" means, like, these are slogans, and slogans are not killing people, bombs are killing people.

• 27:02Adam Friedland?

  For me personally, I just have to say, like, as a Jewish person, especially like watching Zorin's mayoral election, it was just, they were being Islamophobic to him, and they were saying that they have to do it for the Jews. And it was revolting to me to watch, because, yeah, I mean, and it was done by this guy from like a political dynasty, right? It's not even Jewish.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  No, no, which is, which is totally absurd, but.

• 27:32Adam Friedland?

  But there is propaganda, yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Anti-Semitism is real and is rising, but it's not because of the Palestinian movement, it's not because of these protests, it's because of, first, the openization of anti-Semitism, it's because of the use of anti-Semitism as, as a way to, to go after dissent.

• 27:49Adam Friedland?

  The definition of anti-Semitism doesn't hold any weight, if you say that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  So that's like, this, like, the fact about, like, cheapening the fight of anti-Semitism, like, it's, which, which is scary, like, when you have a state that's insisting on, on using Judaism as, as a shield.

• 28:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it has, again, it is the star of David.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  So.

• 28:13Adam Friedland?

  And then they're seeing atrocities, it's like.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  And this is what I've been saying, like, again, here, that's the only, that's the only deflection that they can have, because who wants to be an anti-Semite? No one wants to be an anti-Semite. And that's what they use as, as an attack, like, oh, you're anti-Semitic, because.

• 28:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Because they're really weaponizing that, and, and this is what's cheapening the fight against anti-Semitism.

• 28:39Adam Friedland?

  I, I don't, I think that when I hear the narrative of the Palestinians, this is something that dawned on me when I was younger, like, the narrative of you being in a different country, third, second generation in a refugee camp.

• 28:57Adam Friedland?

  You know, learning what happened in Sabra and Shoshila, like, learning about the, you know, the Nakba. It's, it's, um, correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels like you're unwanted people. And that's what Jews were for 1,800 years. And it bothers me that, that, more than the antisemitism thing, it bothers me that it feels like there's an erasure of that, of who we are. Like, uh, and that if anyone could understand what it's like to be a Palestinian, like, to be people that are unwanted and just kicked out of their homes, and then they go to a new place and they're not wanted there, uh, it should be Jewish people.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I mean, this is why our greatest allies are Jewish people.

• 29:46Adam Friedland?

  No, you don't have to say that.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I would say, like, you know, we do, we do have that, and I'm not, like, uh, you know, we have, we have Jewish Voices for Peace, and Ben the Ark, and If Not Now, who are, like, really feeling that, you know, like, being Jewish values that about social justice and what's happening.

• 30:05Adam Friedland?

  Well, historically, yeah, I always thought that was cool, because, like, I've said this before, but, like, my parents, my dad and mom moved to Los Angeles because my parents were, lived in South Africa. They went away to university, they came back, they got married, and then my dad got called up to Angola, to the civil war. And they were like, you know, my dad's a real coward. He's a regular, he's a Jane Fonda, you know, he's a real beatnik, you know? No, so they, they didn't want to raise their family in a fucked up place. But the, the white people that, including family, friends, that, a vast, like, a, a large proportion of the people that joined the struggle and joined the ANC, uh, were

• 30:47Adam Friedland?

  Jewish people, because we understood what prejudice is.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  But, I mean, let's, I mean, I would say, like, this is what Zionism is about. Zionism is about erasing the other, erasing, like, the Palestinians, erasing their stories, their history, their connection to the land, uh, to create that central colonial entity that's Israel. But historically, I mean, I wouldn't go, like, I wouldn't narrate now, like, about what Zionism is.

• 31:14Adam Friedland?

  I mean, beyond that, it's just like, I don't know, we didn't have beef with, with Muslims. Like, the, the reason, after the Spanish, this is so boring, okay?

• 31:25Speaker 02

  No, no, it's totally right. Yeah, they went, they went to the Middle East, they went to Morocco and to Palestine.

• 31:31Adam Friedland?

  They were permitted in Muslim countries, uh, after the church. If you're looking at the body count, you know, the, the church is crushing it. I mean, they're like, they're like, they're world champs. I mean, I, I think it's like, a little bit like, it's strange to me, um, that, because it's, another misunderstanding about the whole conflict is that this is something that's existed for thousands of years, it's, it's not.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean.

• 32:01Adam Friedland?

  Muslims and Jews fighting each other.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Look, like, I, I mean, like, there was Palestine or the Levant area, like Palestine, the bigger Syria, it was a place of refuge for so many people. You had the Armenians, who fled the massacres, against them, settled in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. You had the Caucasians, the Greeks, uh, so it was a place of refuge, like, and my family, my mom's family, they, they found refuge from Algeria and Palestine. So it wasn't like something that's out of the ordinary, that to, to receive Jewish refugees or to, to receive anyone. It's, it's the fact that this group of, of people, they wanted to, they wanted exclusivity

• 32:47Speaker 02

  on the land, which then stirred all the problems. And before the Balfour Declaration, everyone, everyone was, I would say, oppressed under the Ottomans, whether they are Muslim or they are.

• 32:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Hassan P. Care.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  No, right, like, that's.

• 33:00Adam Friedland?

  Literally, and has he apologized, okay? I want to talk about Louisiana. I grew up in the Southwest, right? I grew up with a lot of Latinos, right? And to me, when I was a kid, I learned about the Holocaust, and I, my first question for my parents was like, how do, how does an entire country become antisemitic, all, all in one moment? What happened was, it was invisible largely. There were people that were taken, and they would see Jews get taken, but then they, you know, life in Germany was, you'd go to the office the next day, you know? You'd have a Christmas party, you'd get a little too drunk.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  It's, it's not invisible, I think it's people choose not to look at it.

• 33:43Adam Friedland?

  To me, I saw Los Angeles, I saw the Marines in Los Angeles, and then I was like, oh yeah, I'm going to the office the next day. You know, my life is not really disrupted, right? You found yourself in a position with, and growing up around a lot of Mexican people, a lot, primarily Mexicans in the Southwest, they are people that strictly want to make more money for their families, you know? And, um, people that come here to work too, you know, like, that make our lives much easier. And people that are invisible too. They are the most vulnerable people in our society.

• 34:21Adam Friedland?

  In Minneapolis, we saw two American citizens get shot, there was an outcry, we saw an entire American city under siege. I don't think the question is being asked about what's been happening to these people now for years. What was your experience like in detainment?

• 34:38Speaker 02

  I mean, just like, on, on your point, like, I, now, I just, like, I remember, like, Juan, who was like, my bunkmate, who has been in the United States for over 24 years, like, he arrived here in 2001. And it was like, his second night, and he was just like, so shocked that he's, he's in detention, and he tells me, like, he was, he's a father of two US citizens, like, his daughters were nine and, and two, I believe. But also, he tells me, like, oh, I have a roofing company, I paid last year over $300,000 in taxes, uh, I was picked up from my, uh, from my workshop. And to him, like, he felt that his tax papers, like, were his way out, because he felt he

• 35:22Speaker 02

  was doing everything right, like, he, he was picked up from work, um, he, he employs, like, over 20, uh, 20 workers, um, and that was the type of every single person in detention. But what really broke them was the fact that they're being so dehumanized, um, on, on the news, being called all the names. And for them, they were like, we didn't, like, we just wanted, like, what's good for, for our kids, what's good, what's good for our future. And just to me, like, that was, like, shocking, like, to a lot, to a lot of them, like, just like, the fact that they're being dehumanized this, this way.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  A lot of the people were picked up from their ICE chickens or court hearings, so they were literally doing the right thing. To find themselves in a place with over 70 men in one room, sharing, like, one big room, so cold, you only get a thin blanket, the food is so terrible.

• 36:22Adam Friedland?

  That was what, the room you were in?

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Exactly, uh, in, in Louisiana. They don't know, they, they don't understand, like, I mean, they don't know their rights, because they either, I mean, which was shocking to me, at least, like, I got some papers, like, what I'm being.

• 36:37Adam Friedland?

  But they had a bureaucrat.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, I mean, no, no, but for them, like, they did not even get that paper. And I still remember, like, the, the man from Honduras, who, um, who came to me and showed me a paper, and I was like, damn, you're fucked. He was like, what's happening? I mean, through a, a, a translation. He signed his deportation paper without knowing, without, without knowing anything.

• 37:02Adam Friedland?

  It was in English?

• 37:03Speaker 02

  It was in English.

• 37:04Adam Friedland?

  So, correct me if I'm wrong, but the impression I get is that they want to make life so intolerable for people. If you're in detainment in the, in the States, primarily, you're here legally, right? And so they, if you're not legal status, they deport you. So, from what I understand, they're, and you correct me if I'm wrong, they're trying to make life so intolerable for these people that they will self-deport. They'll sign a piece of paper that says, I'm never coming back.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  So, some of them, they don't have status, they don't, that doesn't mean they committed any crimes, like, they came through the borders, they've been here for so long, and, because, you know, the, the US immigration system is so, not only complicated, like, it's designed to exclude such people from, from, from, from the system. So, for them, you know, like, not, just like, not having papers doesn't, like, really, I mean, DHS is only 20 years old, or ICE, it's only 20 years old.

• 38:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Bush.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  It's not, it's not that, like, people would think, like, oh, like, what, what we would do without ICE, like, you know, immigrants would be, no, like, it's, it's a new, it's a new, um, thing, it's, it's a new invention, ICE and DHS. And for so long, Europe, like, they, they, they managed their immigration without ICE, without locking people up, locking people up in, in, in remote detention centers. But what you said is exactly what it is, is the fact that they make the conditions in such detention centers so unbearable, so that you would want to leave as soon as possible. With everything, like, it's designed for that.

• 38:41Adam Friedland?

  Did you see people, we've had a record number of people dying in detainment.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, this year.

• 38:46Adam Friedland?

  Detention, yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, this year was, I think, the highest since, since ever, and we're only three, four months into.

• 38:53Adam Friedland?

  Did you see anything like that, like, like?

• 38:55Speaker 02

  I did, I mean, I had, I had another, another, um, like, fellow detainee with his leg amputated. And you can see that his leg is, is, is getting swollen. He would go to the medical center, they would send him back, and only after three weeks that they sent him to a hospital. After, like, I don't know, I mean, it was, it was so bad, but also, um, he chose to just, like, self-deport or just sign the deportation, uh, documents, and.

• 39:30Adam Friedland?

  What was the company that, like, it's a, these are privately owned facilities too, which is also another aspect of it.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  And I mean, that was shocking, shocking for me, because, again, like, I'm, I'm not, I'm not innocent of, of being ignorant about the immigration system in this, in this country. I wasn't, like, before, before my detention, I, I never thought about what ICE detention is. I had no reason to believe, like, to, to, to learn about it, because like, I was.

• 39:54Adam Friedland?

  Well, I don't think most people know.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  So, because I was a green card holder, everything is good, I was on track to get my, my US citizenship in, in two years, so.

• 40:02Adam Friedland?

  Have a life with your wife.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  So why would, you know, like, and it's, maybe it's stupid of me, like, I never thought that something is happening here.

• 40:08Adam Friedland?

  No, it's not stupid.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  But the moment I stepped in, into these detention centers, I was just shocked, like, is this really happening in this country? This episode is brought to you by eBay Live. Here's how it goes. First, you're just.

• 40:20Adam Friedland?

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• 40:54Speaker 03

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• 41:55Adam Friedland?

  So, we were on a roll there talking about ICE. But, so DJ Khaled, do you think that's the most famous Palestinian?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  No. Jesus is the most famous Palestinian.

• 42:08Adam Friedland?

  Oh. I think, I thought he was Jewish.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  I mean, that's the thing, like...

• 42:14Adam Friedland?

  This changes everything.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  I don't think it's mutually exclusive.

• 42:18Adam Friedland?

  He was obsessed with his mother, you know?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  I'm obsessed with my mother.

• 42:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, same, dude. We're Jews. We're Jews, dude. Okay, the private prison aspect of it, like, I've heard reports that they make you buy water, that they make it egregiously expensive to make phone calls. Like, how are they, how are they, how are these companies benefiting?

• 42:43Speaker 02

  So, everything about, like, the detention was about, like, profit, basically.

• 42:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  You know, the phone call, I think it was 10 cents per minute. If it's domestic, about a dollar something if it's international, and most of the time it's international.

• 42:57Adam Friedland?

  Which Syrian prices, that's like a house.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Oh, that's like a...

• 43:01Adam Friedland?

  That's a house.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  But also with the commissary and, I mean, there were like few people who were before coming to, very, very few, before coming to ICE detention, they were in federal detention or like prison or in state prison. And they would say like, you know, "Take us back to the prisons because it's much cheaper." Just like, "The situation is much better than here." But again, like, it's, but I mean, they would do everything for profit. Like, if that means that they would starve you to death, they would do it because that would save them money. And that's like, was about the food. Like, the food was terribly bad. And they would say that because like, there was...

• 43:50Adam Friedland?

  What was the food like?

• 43:51Speaker 02

  No, I mean, there was room to improve the food as it is. It's just like, they don't want to. The food was like, literally beans, different color every day. So, one day we would have red eye bean, another day black bean, white bean, with some rice and, I mean, depends on the day, but like, very, very basic. I was on the vegetarian meal because I tried the meat once and it was like eating mud, literally. I had to throw up and go to the vegetarian meal, which means like, you would never get full, so you're always hungry. So I lost like 15 pounds, which was, I mean, not bad.

• 44:36Adam Friedland?

  Not bad. Ozempic, probably. Your team's got you on Ozempic now that you're Hollywood.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  No, at least 15, so, yeah.

• 44:46Adam Friedland?

  I guess, do you, do you think about the people that you were with there? And how do you connect the refugee story with these individuals, you know?

• 44:59Speaker 02

  I mean, you know, like, being a refugee is just like, looking for a better future for yourself and really, you know, being, whether persecuted or just like fleeing a bad situation.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  And, no, I always think, like, I remember the moment I left ICE detention when I got released. And the only feeling I could have is really crying about the people I left behind. Because that was the first time I see the detention center from the outside. And as I was walking, there were reporters there and they look behind me and I could see the yard where we would have like, the timeout like there. And I just could just like cry because like, a minute before I was inside with them, just like...

• 45:56Adam Friedland?

  And you have a name, too. Like, a lot of these people are nameless.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  That's, I mean, the biggest, like, to me, I had, I was very lucky, very privileged to have excellent lawyers on my team.

• 46:05Adam Friedland?

  Let's give it up for these guys.

• 46:10Adam Friedland?

  What about Dirchwitz?

• 46:11Speaker 02

  But that hurt me because...

• 46:14Adam Friedland?

  Something like that.

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Because most of them, they don't even have one lawyer. Like, not even one lawyer. And, you know, I entered detention thinking that my case was the most devastating case. You know, like, you know, my wife is pregnant, she's gonna give birth in one or two months and I'm not accused of any crime, I'm a green card holder. I was just being shipped from New York to Louisiana. But, in a day, I was like, you know what? I'm lucky. Like, when I see all these fathers. We had a person who, his wife was also detained in a detention center about two hours away

• 46:56Speaker 02

  from, like, Gina, Louisiana, like, where I was. And for nine months, they never met. They were like, literally two hours apart, like, in two different, but also they never had a direct phone call. Because you're not allowed to call another detention center or another facility. So I had, you know, to go back to my bureaucracy roots and drive to the...

• 47:23Adam Friedland?

  You did the paperwork.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  To the facility. There was like some rule and I told them like, you know, like, "I want to have a direct phone call with my wife. I haven't done that in nine months." And they approved it and they gave him like a bi-weekly, one-hour call with her. So that was like my biggest achievement in detention.

• 47:41Adam Friedland?

  That's good. You negotiated.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  So...

• 47:45Adam Friedland?

  I'm thinking, you're working on a screenplay right now about Louisiana detention. So, sitcom, you were saying, right?

• 47:52Speaker 02

  You could say that.

• 47:54Adam Friedland?

  Did you learn any Spanish?

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Only the bad words.

• 47:56Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah. Let's just bust out some.

• 48:01Adam Friedland?

  Pendejo.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  I wouldn't.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  So...

• 48:07Adam Friedland?

  You don't cuss?

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Not hugely.

• 48:10Adam Friedland?

  Have you ever called him Little Marco?

• 48:14Adam Friedland?

  Just like, I feel like you're so like, you're such a well-mannered individual.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wouldn't go that low, to be honest. The only person...

• 48:22Adam Friedland?

  How low he is? He's not that, he's like 5'2" or something.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  No, the only person is Stephen Miller because he's such a vicious...

• 48:28Adam Friedland?

  Because he's bald, yeah.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  I'm bald, so...

• 48:31Adam Friedland?

  No, but he's been bald since 7th grade, I heard.

• 48:35Adam Friedland?

  That is the genesis of evil, honestly. If I was bald 7th grade, I would have, I would have, I would have won at Stalingrad.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  I think it's more...

• 48:44Adam Friedland?

  Or Leningrad.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  It's beyond that appearance, it's just like, you know...

• 48:48Adam Friedland?

  No, but you think about it, you're 13, bald. I'm not saying I have any sympathy for Stephen Miller, but I'm saying if you're My friend went to his high school, you know about what happened?

• 48:59Speaker 02

  When he was defending

• 49:01Adam Friedland?

  He went to He ran for student body president, he got booed by the whole school.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 49:06Adam Friedland?

  This is, you need to know this T on your, this is his main op, okay? So he, he was like a, it was like liberal Jewish, Santa Monica, California. Have you been to LA yet?

• 49:17Speaker 02

  Once, yeah.

• 49:18Adam Friedland?

  Alright, cool.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  It was a bad experience, but.

• 49:21Adam Friedland?

  What, was it?

• 49:22Speaker 02

  I ended up in that neighborhood. So, we wanted to go

• 49:27Adam Friedland?

  It's always good for three days, then you look around the room, you're like, everyone here's a moron.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  No, no, just like we, we wanted to go, I was with Noor and we wanted to go to, to a restaurant to have to have dinner. And we found that Persian place and we went to, like, I had no reason not to go to that place. And, like, we were, while we were around the end of it, end of our dinner, I could, I could see, like, a couple of tables they're giving us, like, there to look.

• 49:54Adam Friedland?

  Them boys are, no.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  But then, they just stood up and just like, starting chanting, "Am Israel high, am Israel high", for like, five minutes, and they felt like, so awkward.

• 50:03Adam Friedland?

  Those guys, they, they went into the encampment at UCLA.

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, that was like

• 50:10Adam Friedland?

  Them and the Proud Boys.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  My LA experience, no, the same at Columbia, like, Proud Boys came to Columbia, like

• 50:15Adam Friedland?

  For Israel?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, like, at the encampment, like, there's like, at, at, at the time of the encampment, so

• 50:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's so confusing these days, you know, you would assume that they don't like Jews and then they, but they like they like the killing ones, yeah, I don't know. Were the seats at the Persian restaurant leopard skin, or like, kind of an animal print?

• 50:35Speaker 02

  No.

• 50:36Adam Friedland?

  They like that, they like, yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  It's just like you see

• 50:39Adam Friedland?

  Was the whole parking lot black BMWs?

• 50:40Speaker 02

  No, I, I mean, it's, it's so disturbing, to be honest, because like, some had to wait, had to wait for me outside, holding an Israeli flag, I don't know, like, they had it on hand, I don't know, like

• 50:51Adam Friedland?

  Cause you were a nerd and you went to college?

• 50:53Speaker 02

  I had just

• 50:54Adam Friedland?

  This is like, this is such bullshit. You, what do you want? Like, you wanna be an American citizen and you wanna live here with your child and your wife?

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Of course, that's why I, I came here, like, looking for stability. For the first time, I was like, looking forward to having, like, the green card, the first permanent thing I ever had. And, really, I was, you know, like, right before my detention, like, and it's, it's just so surreal when I think about it, because I was recently graduated, I graduated, graduated in December, and we were waiting

• 51:27Adam Friedland?

  Who was your GPA?

• 51:28Speaker 02

  I have no idea, I haven't looked at it.

• 51:30Adam Friedland?

  Probably straight A's.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, I'm, I'm a bad, like, my undergraduate GPA is 2.4.

• 51:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but you did it in computers, that's hard.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, computer science.

• 51:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, okay, I would've gotten 0.0.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, but I was literally like, just waiting, you know, like, preparing for the, the arrival of Dean, going with Noor to doctor's appointment, go trying strollers all across the city, just to find that I

• 51:56Adam Friedland?

  They're fucking expensive, right?

• 51:58Speaker 02

  They're so expensive.

• 51:59Adam Friedland?

  You gotta go Craigslist, I think.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  No, no, we went to Jersey, like, to get one.

• 52:02Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you gotta go Jersey, yeah, but those might have lead paint or something, right? I don't know, you gotta check.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  So, I wasn't that, you know, like, just waiting to start my job, 1st of April, at the UN. Like, everything is, I was in Mexico, like, doing baby moon, that was the first time I heard of that.

• 52:20Adam Friedland?

  What is baby moon?

• 52:22Speaker 02

  A baby moon. Apparently, it's like, the last trip you do before, like, before giving birth to a child, so

• 52:29Adam Friedland?

  So she's like, feels terrible on a plane?

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that was like, when she was like, seven months, so she's like, yeah, this is the last trip we can have before

• 52:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and you wanna go like, to the, you wanna go to the beach and stuff, and she's like, I'm disgusted.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  So we went to Mexico and they came back, I think, like, a week or so before my, my arrest, and then I was called up, like, you know, "Bernard doesn't wanna negotiate with the students, would you come to negotiate with Bernard?" I was like, "Okay, I don't have anything to do", so, so I went and that was like, the, the second part of it.

• 53:03Adam Friedland?

  And so, as you said, you're one of 10 Palestinian students?

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Less, maybe, and not, I mean, there are like, first, second generation Palestinian students, but I was like, less than five, maybe, Palestinians who lived, you know, the exile, or even under occupation.

• 53:20Adam Friedland?

  And so, is that, you think, when you think, cause they haven't presented any evidence, you haven't had the trial yet, where they say how you jeopardized the foreign policy of America?

• 53:29Speaker 02

  They have not, because they have nothing, and

• 53:31Adam Friedland?

  But, like, when they targeted you, what do you, what do you consider to be the source of that?

• 53:41Speaker 02

  I mean, look, like, if, if, if you've seen the video of my arrest, I was so calm, because I, I knew I did nothing wrong. I was like, there's no way, it's just a misunderstanding, I'll be out in, you know, in an hour or two. But when I was in, in Federal Plaza, Federal 26, and I see the, that was the first time they give me the, called NTA, the notice to appear, and they see that the Secretary of State has determined that you are a foreign, something like, foreign policy threat.

• 54:14Adam Friedland?

  What's his name?

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Rubio?

• 54:16Adam Friedland?

  No. What's his name, though?

• 54:19Speaker 02

  Who?

• 54:20Adam Friedland?

  Little, little man?

• 54:21Speaker 02

  I mean

• 54:22Adam Friedland?

  Come on, just call him that, it seems like fun when Trump do.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  But while, while I'm reading this, I hear the officer telling another, "The White House is requesting an update", I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

• 54:33Adam Friedland?

  That's cool. Trump was watching it.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, "The White House is requesting an update", and, and to me, like, literally, at that point, like, what I did is just protesting, and this is the most American thing you would do in this country, like, to protest? That's like, what, I'm, like, you know, that's the First Amendment.

• 54:51Adam Friedland?

  It's the first rule, it's the first rule of America, right?

• 54:55Speaker 02

  And they say the second is there to protect the one, so, you know, like, that's even like

• 54:59Adam Friedland?

  The second one is really important to us, too, but the first one, the first one is, that's what I, you know, you're

• 55:08Speaker 02

  No, that was, shocked me, because like, there wasn't like, any crime I committed, like, it wasn't that, because in his determination, Rubio says that his actions, although lawful, or otherwise lawful, possess a foreign policy threat. So like, he sort of like conceded that all my actions were lawful, like, how would I, how would I know? And, and again, like, it's, that's what we've been talking about, about like, whether you agree with me or not, and I think you should agree with me, but, whether or not, I mean, you know, genocide is bad, like

• 55:43Adam Friedland?

  I'm on the fence right now, yeah. I'm awaiting

• 55:47Speaker 02

  That's why, that's why I was saying

• 55:48Adam Friedland?

  I'm gonna see what, how this shakes out, yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  But that's, again, like, if, if they can deport an anti-Zionist for, for his speech, they can deport

• 55:56Adam Friedland?

  Well, they're all supposed to be free speech warriors, right? Isn't that the

• 56:00Speaker 02

  That's, I mean, that's what the Republican Party is supposed to be about, like, you know, protecting free speech, except for Palestine, and, and that's like, even if what they're saying is right about me, which is not, like, it's, it's protected speech.

• 56:13Adam Friedland?

  Assembly and, and speech, and beyond that, you're Palestinian, and it's, the protest is about a genocide of Palestinians.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Regardless of who I am, regardless of what I do, like, again, like, once again, like, it's, it's just the idea of targeting

• 56:26Adam Friedland?

  100%

• 56:27Speaker 02

  someone for a lawful speech.

• 56:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  Like, whether it's like, some people feel uncomfortable, whatever that is, like, it's very lawful.

• 56:34Adam Friedland?

  Well, I, what made a big impression on me when I was a kid, shout out to you guys over there, well, you weren't there, it was some other guys, but like, the Skokie, Illinois, the Supreme Court case, I always thought it was really cool that there were the American Nazi, not the Amer, no, I didn't think that that was cool. I thought, the American, just for a background, the American Nazi Party wanted to march in Skokie, which was a community with a lot of Holocaust survivors, and I always thought it was really cool that there were like, Jewish lawyers at the ACLU that were representing the, the American Nazi Party in, at the Supreme Court,

• 57:14Adam Friedland?

  because like, because in Amer, like, in other countries, like, in England, you go to jail for Facebook, you know, like, I, they're like, we have higher ideals and principles, like, this is supposed to be one. And it was always kind of a progressive, kind of, being a free speech warrior, was never considered a conservative topic. I think what happened was, we, in America, we had Charlottesville, and it freaked people out, and I think that there was a revulsion, and I think they kind of ceded it to the right. Ah, God, it, we have a hell of a country, do you like, I don't know, do you like, like, the NBA? It's pretty good.

• 57:58Adam Friedland?

  Have you seen movies, like?

• 58:00Speaker 02

  I, yeah.

• 58:01Adam Friedland?

  Goodfellas, that's American?

• 58:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do, yeah, I just, I just finished The Sopranos, just like, last week.

• 58:08Adam Friedland?

  How amazing is it?

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Oh, love it, you know, Jersey.

• 58:11Adam Friedland?

  Do you still wanna be an American citizen?

• 58:14Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely, I mean, that's

• 58:15Adam Friedland?

  It kinda sucks for you, though, it's been crappy for you, no?

• 58:19Speaker 02

  It's been, I mean, it's been a hell of a battle, but that's why I'm fighting my case, you know, because I, I believe in that premise, and I'm not saying like, America is, is perfect in any way, and then, there, there needs to be so much things to do, but that's the promise, that's the American dream of coming here and, you know, realizing what you are.

• 58:36Adam Friedland?

  We just say that's the Chinese people, so they do a railroad.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  No, no, I mean

• 58:40Adam Friedland?

  That's the thing with outside of Ilhan.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  That's like, you know, like, that's why so many refugees ended up in, in, in this country, historically, you know?

• 58:46Adam Friedland?

  Well, historically, they didn't allow people trying to leave the Holocaust, you know?

• 58:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's one, so

• 58:52Adam Friedland?

  And then in 1952, they made the anti-Semitic law that you're being anti-Semitic about.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  It's like, it's not about, you know, me Palestinian or my views, like, if they wanna come after, they could come after every one of you, like

• 59:04Adam Friedland?

  It's, this is a civil rights case, and meeting you and talking to you, it's a testament to, to

• 59:12Speaker 02

  You're enjoying this?

• 59:13Adam Friedland?

  I would make everything about, I would make everything about my, my legal issues. You know there's a comedian, Norm MacDonald, who got cancer and just died, no one knew? I, it's the most masculine thing I could imagine, I would just be in Trader Joe's telling everyone, "My cancer, this line is too long". I'm just saying, you're like, uh, in a, you're, you're, being a sweet lovely person in the face of all this is very, uh, is a, I don't know, it's a lovely thing to see in a shitty time.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  No, thank you. I mean, I'm not the story again, it's like, the story is like about the people being killed using our tax dollars. And the fact that I'm being, you know, like, our rights are being eroded right now.

• 1:00:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  And then I'm just being used as a pawn or an example.

• 1:00:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but you miss your kid's birth.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and nothing, and nothing would, would make up for that, I don't think, like,

• 1:00:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  winning my case or staying here.

• 1:00:15Adam Friedland?

  You FaceTimed? They let you FaceTime?

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  No, no, like, it was a day after that, like, I, I, like, were able to talk to them on video. But it was like, very, very blurred, like, you know, that ancient tablet that, that's, everything is blurred.

• 1:00:30Adam Friedland?

  Tell us about meeting your son, like, what you got about?

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  So the first time I met him actually was in detention, like, behind a glass partition and the, the government refused that we would meet, um, contact visit, where we're allowed, like, to be in the same room and they can't hold him.

• 1:00:51Adam Friedland?

  Cause he's a drug dealer, yeah, he was, could have been smuggling. That's horrible.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  And that's like another, another, you know, level of, of, of the torture of these detention centers.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  Because I'm, to me, I was lucky that I was able to see, to see him. For so many people around me, their family, like, couldn't even visit because they were either undocumented or afraid of coming to here, or it's too far for them and too expensive. But even to that level, the government was, um,

• 1:01:25Speaker 02

  was terrible that they wouldn't allow me to have a contact visit with, with my son. So we had to literally go to a court to force the government to allow us to have a one-hour contact visit. That happened in a courtroom. So the first time I hold, Dean was in, in, in a courtroom. He was one month old. His first visit was from New York to Louisiana, like, a five-hour flight. And I, I still remember I had to, to go to the, like, to ask the officer to get me some wipes, or alcohol, just like, so I don't...

• 1:02:06Adam Friedland?

  Oh yeah, cause he has a lot of shots?

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So, and even like, I did not, I did not care to kiss him. Dare to kiss him, like, at that, at that, at that point, because I was just like worried that, because, you know, you're, you're sharing that place with, with so many people with so little hygiene. So, and that's why, like, I would never, um, I, I always say, like, I would never, nothing would ever make up for that and would never forgive them for stripping me from, from this moment, because it could have been, like, it could have been avoided.

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  Like, in, in so many ways, but to them, the point is cruelty. That's like the whole point of this administration, of this, like, mass deportation campaign, because they want to break me and to decide to leave. Because, to them, like, from first week, like, if I decided to leave, you can leave the country and just go.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  So they, they wanted to maintain that, that cruelty, so that I would be broken.

• 1:03:09Adam Friedland?

  I think that's a good place to leave this. I think, uh, you got this, bro.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  No, I mean, we got it.

• 1:03:15Adam Friedland?

  You got this, you got these, like, telling the truth ass college, college people.

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  No, I'm, I'm so...

• 1:03:21Adam Friedland?

  I gotta get, my, my dad's guy, he works with, uh, is good, Madoff.

• 1:03:28Adam Friedland?

  We gotta get, we gotta get you some...

• 1:03:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, some like, uh, yeah, like a slip and fall kinda guy, yeah. Yeah, I know a personal injury guy from high school.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 1:03:42Adam Friedland?

  Good man.