Emily Austin - Judaism, Israel, and the Richness of the Middle East (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_902)
Episode Stats
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Summary
Emily Austin joins me in Tel Aviv to talk about her new show, The Emily Austin Show, and why she thinks Andrew Cuomo is the best candidate for governor of New York. She also talks about why she's not a hypocrite.
Transcript
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Hi everybody, this is Gatsad. Today I've got another fantastic guest, Emily Austin. How are
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you? I'll introduce you in a second, but how are you doing? Good, I'm in Tel Aviv. Life can't be
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better. So you're in the place where you're walking over the dead bodies of all those that
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were genocided? That's what my comments say, yeah. That's terrible. What a disgusting Zionist you are.
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Uh, but, but, but, uh, but, but easy on the eyes, if I may say, I usually refer to myself as when
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people say, Oh, you're a great professor. So on. I always reply. Why did you not put that? I'm also
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easy on the eye. So you're a Zionist, but you're easy on the eyes. So maybe that serves as a redeeming
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quality. Could that be? I really hope so. My favorite DMS, I have to tell you, and I get them
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like even five minutes ago, they write, you might be pretty on the outside, but you're ugly on the
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inside. And I'm like, at least you're giving credit where it's due. There you go. There you
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go. We can't have it all. Uh, okay. So you're from, uh, you studied at Hofstra. Uh, what was it
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in sports broadcasting? I know that that's your main profession, but was it in that field that you
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studied? So I started at Hofstra, I did pre-med, which is random and a longer story. And then I
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switched to the comm school, but they actually made my life a living hell. So I transferred to
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Turo university, which I graduated from there. And now I might go to law school there. So. Oh, I see. Okay.
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Well, your, your Jewish parents must be deeply disappointed that they can't brag to the world
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that we have a Jewish doctor in the family. Uh, but my, my, my personal link to Hofstra in 2009,
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when our daughter, our first born was a very, very young, her first trip ever, she must've been
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maybe three months old was I was giving a talk at Hofstra for the 150th anniversary of the release
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of Charles Darwin's on, on the origin of species, which, uh, 2009 was 150 years. And as you may or
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may not know, my scientific area of research is to apply evolutionary psychology to study human
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behavior. So I do have a link to Hofstra. You then went on and became a sports broadcaster,
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which you still are doing also segued into political commentary. Just yesterday, you, I think it was
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yesterday. You started your new show, the Emily Austin show. You had Andrew Cuomo as your first guest.
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I might say that I could have been offended because many of the top shows today, I've been
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their inaugural guest. Dave Rubin, I was the inaugural guest. Tyrus, planet Tyrus, I'm the
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inaugural guest. I could give you a whole list. And yet Emily Austin had the chutzpah and go,
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they're not ask me first, but chose Andrew Cuomo. Tell us.
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We'll make a deal. We'll make a deal. Season two, episode one, you will be the debut episode.
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Sounds good. Sounds good. Tell us how that went. Tell us about the show and then we can take it
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from there. Well, the launch was phenomenal. I interviewed Cuomo. Needless to say, I kept it
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very light. You know, everybody knows where I stand. I hate mom, Donnie. Cuomo is the better
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candidate. Doesn't mean he's perfect. No. But am I going to do everything I can to make him look great?
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Yes. So that's what I did. Now, what wasn't scripted and I just kind of, I never, you know,
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stick to the script on my podcast. My first episode, I already have like a set standard.
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Anyway, I went off script and I was like, you know what? I'm starting hot girls for Cuomo because
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for whatever reason, hot girls for mom, Donnie came to my head and I just like off the cuff was
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like, all right, hot girls for Cuomo. Here we go. I never thought that that video would have now
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18 million views. And it's just going up and up and up. And I'm like, when is this going to end?
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Um, which is great for the podcast, but obviously, you know, how the liberals are having absolute
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meltdowns and not just liberals. Cause Cuomo is a Democrat. I noticed everyone having a meltdown
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over this has a free Palestine in their bio Palestine flag, or they're like a queer Jew,
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anything that has to do with labeling themselves to not fit in. That's something that they all have
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in common. So it was great. They took it out of context and tried to make it something negative.
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Um, they tried to pretend I'm not hot. I mean, come on, like, come on, you can't do that. Uh,
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and then you became part of hot girls for Cuomo. So, uh, it all, not me fear, Sally. I that's just,
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she's a distant cousin of mine. That's not me. Excuse. She looks like you. She does look a bit
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like me. Yes. And for those of you who don't know, go to Emily's, uh, hot girl thing. I, uh,
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sent a picture of my alter ego, fear, Sally. Uh, so can we say what percentage of the 18 million
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views were due to fear? Sally. A significant amount. I'd say most of them. So how was there
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anything in the conversation that you had with Andrew Cuomo that surprised you either in the
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positive sense or in the negative sense, or is it all sort of the, the typical sort of boilerplate
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stuff that you might expect a politician to, to offer you? I mean, at this point, personally
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speaking, I already do my homework on people. So there's not much that can surprise me in an
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interview. What surprises me about this election in general is that I ask Cuomo, can you clarify,
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you know, free busing, grocery control, uh, rent freezing. Can you actually explain what this means
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to the average New Yorker? Because Mamdani is making it sound like it's rainbows and unicorns,
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but Cuomo stated so simply, learn it young folks, nothing in life is free. And it's really that
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simple sometimes. And I can't understand why that message is not penetrating because everyone's
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thinking Mamdani will make everything free. No, the buses will turn into homeless shelters. Um,
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he's not going to freeze your rent or he will for 20% of New Yorkers and the other 80% will have to
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pay double for their, you know, rent free apartment. And it's just like, why can't people just hear the
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other side out? You don't have to like Cuomo, but do you really just believe everything Mamdani says?
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So when I interviewed him, I really tried to get that messaging across. Like he is lying to you.
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And then he told me he's a Knicks fan. So no matter what he believes in, we have to like each other
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now. Well, you know, do you know who Ariel Helwani is? Of course. He's a boxing reporter,
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my fellow Jew. Uh, do you know at all of my relationship with him? No, no. And you say you do
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your homework before you. You're interviewing me, God. I know, but still, but still, uh, he's my
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maternal nephew. Now the reason, yes. The reason why, uh, I'm mentioning this is because since of,
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since as far back as I remember him being a young child, he was a fan of the New York Knicks in the,
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in the Patrick Ewing era. And he has a very unique, I don't know if it's sort of love for the underdog,
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but he's always, and I'm here to, to confirm, he's always loved the New York Knicks. He's always
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loved the Buffalo Bills, you know, at the time when they had lost, you know, four Super Bowls in a
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row in the early nineties, he was a diehard Buffalo fan. So now he's a bit happier because
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they're quite a, you know, uh, uh, an attractive team to watch. And I don't know why, but he's decided
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to jump on the Nottingham forest bandwagon. So this is a team that plays in the premier league
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in England, but that had been out of the top league for maybe 30 years and that's his team.
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So maybe one day you'll explain to me his choices, but he supports just like you do the New York Knicks.
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That's so funny. I know Ariel, I don't remember which fight we had worked on initially,
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but I remember being so relieved that there was another Jew working with me. And I remember it was
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my first day and he was so nice. And we were like stuck outside the parking lot for hours.
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And, um, honestly, like on a serious note, sometimes being politically opinionated in sports,
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first of all, it sucks. Like if nobody had an opinion, I'd keep mine to myself,
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but when everyone feels that they can share theirs and we're supposed to stay silent,
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I don't accept that. And to see that Ariel is also very public about where he stands and how he's
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unapologetic about that, it makes it easier for myself to feel more confident doing it.
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So you might, you must be, uh, I don't know if you, you know her, or maybe you've had a chat with
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her. I have had her on the show a while ago. Sage Steele would be someone that you would certainly
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appreciate because she sort of broke the mold of having some quote conservative positions at ESPN.
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Yes. Yeah. Um, I call it the Biden regime because being a university student under Biden,
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especially at Hofstra felt like living under a dictatorship of some sort, but being pro Trump
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when he was the president had to be the most forget isolating. Cause I could deal with the
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feeling of being isolated, but I felt like I was being punished on a daily basis, whether it was
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remarks from my professors or being penalized for not conforming to their, uh, right. Why Leah Thomas
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is women of the month? No, thank you. She's not even a woman. You know, I'm not going to do that
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or write me why Trump is a dictator and a fascist or write why Trump is similar to Hitler in six
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paragraphs or less. I didn't comply with any of that. And I faced consequences for that. And that
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was just how it was under Biden. There was nobody to complain to. There was nobody to report to.
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That was the standard. And then what like broke the camels back at Hofstra was the forced
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vaccinations. And I get that it was a state law, their private university. So I feel like they had some
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more leeway with that and the forced vaccinations. It's like they preach to us in class, my body,
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my choice, but it's not my body and my choice when it came to vaccines, but they can hand out
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plan B's all over campus and talk about your body being your choice. I couldn't deal with the hypocrisy.
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And at some point I stopped, I got, I lost all my jobs defending president Trump. I literally got
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thrown out of Hofstra and then had to get contemplate getting vaccinated to get back. It was an absolute
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nightmare. So I so feel for Sage, what she went through. It was literally taboo to be MAGA.
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And then when Trump won, God, everybody hopped on the bandwagon. I know people that are kissing his
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ass in the Oval Office that if I show their DMs to Trump, he will never speak to them again.
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How I was being attacked online for supporting him. And now they're all shaking hands with him.
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It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. Do your parents or family members ever come to you as you
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were facing the consequences of some of your, you know, open positions and say, Hey, Emily, can you
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just be pragmatic and shut that mouth of yours? Or are they all on board? Go honey badger, do your
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thing. Well, their biggest regret first and foremost was me not pursuing pre-med. That was the first
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heartbreak my parents experienced when it came to me. Many more to follow, but that was the first.
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Um, I saw a funny quote where it was like, this Jewish mom's daughter became the first
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woman president ever. And when she gave her speech at inauguration, she goes, and my other daughter's
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a doctor. I was just going to say the exact same joke to you. We have telepathy tonight. So my mom's
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sister's a doctor. My mom's a lawyer. My dad's a banker. My brother studied architecture. And then Emily
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wants to go into journalism. They're like, that that's not a thing. What are you talking about?
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You have no connections in media. You're not an entertainment stick to the medicine. So me already
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leaving that broke their heart. And then, you know, being out there publicly, as you know, it has
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its pros. You get to connect with incredible people. Um, you have influence in certain areas
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when you feel like it, but it also comes with being doxxed and personal attacks and attacks on your
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family. And that's where the line is crossed and nobody respects that line. So when it came to
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post October 7th, I debated a woman on Pierce Morgan. She thought it was a good idea to dox me
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essentially and target me publicly. That was when my family is like, is this worth it? Is what you're
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doing both financially and mentally worth the suffering? And my answer was yes, because a, it's
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very financially worth it. And B, it's also not even about that. It's more so this was my dream my
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whole life. I'm already this close. This was them. And why should I stop now? Because someone's trying
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to make my life hard. So you just want to cater to them and cower and say, okay, you win because you
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made my life a bit difficult. I refuse to let my enemies win. And as a parent, I can see why
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they don't want that path for me. And I personally, like, I don't have kids, but I'd imagine I'd want
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them to like study medicine or something and stay out of the media, but I can handle it. I'm tougher
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than the rest of my siblings. I have very thick skin. And I think today, my dad's my biggest fan.
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My mom is my biggest hater and my biggest fan at the same time. She's like super critical of
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everything I do. But I really think that deep down, they're very, very proud.
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Had you always been someone who spoke your mind went against the current didn't care about,
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you know, abiding to the herd mentality? Or is this something that you discovered in you
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as you faced some of the realities of the past few years?
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Yeah, I think I really think and maybe you could speak on this because you're actually the science
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guy here. I genuinely believe people are born with certain personalities. From birth, I remember
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my parents telling me when I was a kid, like, Emily, you have to stop talking in class. Your
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teachers say you talk too much. They say that you overshare. And this is from like pre-K, I remember
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being told this. Now, growing up, parent-teacher conferences were always a nightmare for me because
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they would always say, she's not like the rest of the class. She doesn't follow the rules.
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She's not a great listener. And I had an older brother one class above. He's a straight boy,
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straight A's, you know, just not a sheep, God forbid, but like kind of a sheep. So he, and he's,
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you know, special in his own way. And all the teachers would always say, Joey's phenomenal. He's
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great. And Emily, well, she's not Joey. Like he was a star child. I was always making noise in the
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house. I keep things interesting. That's how I frame it. So being that personality doesn't really
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have a direction, right? If there's no purpose, you're just a rebel without a cause. And I never
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had any passions really, other than sports, like nothing of significance. My whole life was I played
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tennis growing up. That's all I knew. I studied pre-med and then politics. It just happened.
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It wasn't something I was caring for. In fact, I was so apolitical. I couldn't stand the thought of
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watching Fox news growing up. And then when I got to college, it's like, I got thrown into the real
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world. And I started hearing other perspectives. I had never met, honestly, I'd never met liberals
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until I got to college. I grew up in a tiny bubble in Long Island, full of mostly conservatives. And if
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they weren't, they were moderate, mostly Jews. And if they weren't everyone's friends and allies,
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and then in college, I get called a kike. And I'm like, well, this is new. Suddenly my purposeless
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life of let's do sports journalism found my purpose, which is, whoa, Jews are not liked.
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And that's fine. You're entitled to your opinion, but how can I help it? And then October 7th
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happened. And it went from, okay, I'm not only a Jew now, I need to remind everyone what Zionism is
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and why it's justified, even though we'll get into it. I don't justify it anymore. I stopped explaining
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myself. It doesn't matter. Nobody gets it anyway. But back in college is when I realized
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being a Jew was way more important to me than I ever knew growing up. Being a Zionist was a huge
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priority to me. And then most importantly was defending American values that I saw liberals
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were trying to defer from. Those became my values in college that I had never thought of prior.
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Were you taken aback by the amount? I mean, I'm older than you, obviously, and I have my own
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history and growing up in the Middle East. So my exposure to Jew hatred is very different from
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yours. But even in my case, when I saw the very open orgiastic Jew hatred post-October 7th,
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it took me by surprise. And there are very little, there are few things that can surprise me at this
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point in my life. So in your case, yes, okay, you heard kike maybe at college campuses, but were you
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surprised by the amount of Jew hatred? Because I'm sure you received tons of Jew hatred today.
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Yeah. I'll be very vulnerable right now. After October 7th, I mean, pre-October 7th, I was at the
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peak of my career, peak, you know, relationships, friendships, confidence in myself. And then after
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October 7th, we all got into defense mode. Like we all got super defensive. And then part of being
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defensive is also attacking back. So I became literally, God, a warrior after October 7th.
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And it's great for the cause, right? But for Emily Austin, it was very bad because what people
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knew of me was debates, arguing for Israel on the news, always being combative. And let's be honest,
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I'm a young woman looking to get married one day and have children. And now the narrative that's
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around me is she's this fierce warrior. And it's funny because I'm not even that person.
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I am the most relaxed, hard to annoy, hard to piss off. But the perception of me throughout this time
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is that I'm like this debater and love to fight with people and constantly being attacked. So always
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needing to defend myself. And it mentally put me in such a bad place. Not only was the war going on,
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it consumed my life. And I don't know how it didn't consume every Jew's life, but that's another
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issue I have entirely. But it kind of put my personal life at a stop, a complete halt. My personal
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life breaks. Relationships breaks. Friendships breaks. Even my sports career took hits. I mean,
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Miss Universe dropped me entirely. I got blackballed for convincing them, trying to convince them to make
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a statement, hey, rape is wrong. So I was miserable. I was just this angry, walking ball of rage,
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snappy, pissy. And that's not who I am. So this all was very frustrating to deal with.
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Yeah. You know, what you're saying resonates with me in the following sense. If someone meets me in
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person, but even if you really watch the entirety of my social media, I'm someone who's very, you know,
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I'm jocular. I have fun. I'm very warm. I'm affectionate. But people only remember the spicy
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parts, the sarcasm, the punchiness, the combativeness. And so I'll often get people who
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meet me in person and say, oh, can I tell you something? Yes. I'm very surprised how much warmer
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you seem to be. I was very intimidated to come up to talk to you. I said, why? Well, because you have
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this persona on social media. Well, it's not a persona. It's that if you put someone in an MMA
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arena, they're going to fight. That doesn't mean that I also can't have the love and nurturance to
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tuck my children to bed. Both of these facets are part of the human repertoire of behaviors. And so
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I understand your sort of your sense of people view me as one way, whereas in reality, I'm someone
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different. Oh, wait, but I didn't answer your question. So that was prefacing, was I surprised
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by the antisemitism? Oh, right. And my answer was, because I got into attack mode, as it came,
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I can't say I was expecting it, because I wasn't expecting it, but I was ready for it.
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Now that I've had a week, you know, the hostages are home, I feel like I could like take a break.
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Now that I've had time to process the last two years, I'm looking back and I'm realizing,
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like, I'm stating the obvious here. We, as in Israel, we were attacked, yet we became the
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perpetrators of a genocide, even though Hamas tried to genocide Israel on October 7th. And we
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became the bad guys, even though we're fighting terrorists. And I became the face of genocide.
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And I'm just thinking about how all of this doesn't make sense. And it's like, while everyone's had
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time to relax post-war, I'm just starting now to process how upside down the world is. I had never
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in a million years expected after October 7th, so many people to be happy about Jews dying.
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I hate this narrative of Jews online. And you know what, we're probably thinking of the same people
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right now that are like, oh my God, this is what happened on October 7th and everyone feel bad for
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us. And look, this whole family was massacred and this whole family died and they killed dogs and
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they don't care. In fact, they think they're informing them. No, no, no. Let's be very clear.
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Everybody's aware of what happened. They're happy it happened. So let's stop trying to paint
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ourselves as these victims because no one perceives us as victims anyway. And stop defending
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ourselves and just exist without justifying it to anyone. Because that anti-Semitic response post-October
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7th put a switch in my brain convincing me we're not winning this fight and I'm not trying to because
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it's not a fight. You don't like me? That's too bad. You don't get to kill us. We don't get to kill
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you. That's what living in America is. But you live in the Islamic Jihad of Canada, so I don't know.
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I do. I do. Well, I'm going back and forth. I'm actually a scholar at Ole Miss, which by the way,
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and it's not as though Ole Miss asked me to say this, but for any Jews that don't wish to be going
00:21:51.340
to the Ivy Leagues, and I'm an Ivy Leaguer. I did my MS and PhD at Cornell, but I understand how woke and
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sort of pro-Islam many of these universities have become. Look to the South and look to Ole Miss. One of
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the things that I'm hoping to do is build a cabal of Jewish life at Ole Miss. And so, hey,
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maybe you'll come down and visit us there. Gorgeous place. Men still know that they're men.
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Women still know that they're women. It really, it's funny because last year when I was being courted by
00:22:24.680
several universities trying to, you know, rescue me from, as you said, Canada Stan, I went to visit
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Ole Miss and it would have been, a priori, it would have been last on my list. After I came back from
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the visit in February, I, you know, my wife picked me up at the airport and she goes, so how was it?
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I said, I think we might be moving to Ole Miss. And she's like, really? Because I was receiving
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offers that were actually, you know, more competitive, certainly from a salary perspective,
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but yet it just felt right. It's as if, you know, time stood still. We were back in the 1950s,
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but in the good sense of the 1950s, men are men, women are women. People celebrate, you know,
00:23:09.920
American freedoms and American values. So I really say this, and nobody asked me to say this.
00:23:14.540
Uh, if you're looking for these sort of free liberal, liberal in the true sense of the term
00:23:20.900
schools, the South is where it's happening. Have you heard similar things from other people?
00:23:27.340
Uh, my experiences, a lot of people come to me when they're having nightmares on their campuses. So
00:23:33.560
unfortunately I don't get to hear the good parts of it. A lot of people hear my Hofstra story and then
00:23:38.060
they'll approach me with their own version of their Hofstra story. So it's really nice to hear that
00:23:42.920
because like, again, I don't have kids. I'd love to have many kids one day. And I really,
00:23:47.920
really fear for their upbringing in America. Like I live in New York. I'm thinking like,
00:23:52.920
what school I send them to? Will it be a Jewish school? Cause you know what? The truth is I don't
00:23:56.620
want them growing up in a Jewish bubble because that will come from me in the home. I want them to
00:24:00.940
be in a public school, but schools aren't what they used to be. And college campuses are even worse.
00:24:06.380
And I'm not going to be the mom homeschooling her kids or not sending her kids away to school.
00:24:11.240
But then again, what are the options? So hearing that there are options makes me want to have kids
00:24:16.440
a little bit more. I love that you said that you don't want them to grow up in a Jewish bubble.
00:24:20.500
I'll share with you a story. I can't remember if I've ever said it. I think I might've said it once
00:24:25.000
or twice publicly, but here it goes. So we can assume that it's almost an exclusive. So many years ago,
00:24:29.720
I was sitting down with my dad and he sort of looked at me pensively and he goes,
00:24:34.780
you know what, God, I really regret that I didn't send you to Jewish school. And I looked at him in
00:24:42.700
my sort of inimitable style. And I said, well, that's funny that you would say that, dad,
00:24:46.480
because that which you regret is exactly what I have to thank you for. And that sort of took him
00:24:52.940
aback because exactly to your point, the fact that I didn't go to Jewish school didn't in any way
00:24:59.560
erase any of my staunch commitment to my Jewish heritage. But what it did is that it opened me up
00:25:07.100
to being able to speak to people that are not named Mordechai and Moshe. And that really helped.
00:25:13.780
So I really admire you. You are going to make one hell of a mom one day. And lucky is the husband
00:25:20.580
who is able to pin you down. I mean, pin you down in a marriage sense. Would you ever marry
00:25:27.900
a non-Jewish guy, if I may ask a personal question? I hate this question publicly, but
00:25:33.160
it's time to address it. I've never addressed it publicly. Okay. Back in college, the easiest way
00:25:40.600
to dismiss anyone asking me out was, okay, you're not Jewish. You're not Jewish. Now,
00:25:45.780
what that ended up doing was actually making a lot of people anti-Semitic because it came off
00:25:50.060
really arrogant and dismissive as if, because I'm a Jew, you're not worthy of being my partner.
00:25:55.340
And it did actually make people anti-Semitic. And I had to work very hard to undo the damage that I
00:26:00.340
did. The truth is the reason, the reason I rejected them is because I don't like them.
00:26:05.220
But a big part of it to me, for the person I choose for my future is that we need the same
00:26:10.340
values and we need the same culture. And I'm not just a normal Jewish girl where it's like, yeah,
00:26:16.040
I'm Jewish. And then I do whatever I want and not judging you guys, at least you're proudly Jewish,
00:26:21.060
but like I keep kosher. I don't work on Shabbat. We do kiddush every Friday night. I have crazy family
00:26:26.000
values. I'm not just Jewish. I'm Iraqi Sephardic. So like really strong family values. And I speak
00:26:33.640
Hebrew and I want my kids to speak Hebrew and I want them to go to Israel every summer. And if my
00:26:37.620
husband doesn't understand that, if my husband doesn't want to go to Israel or has no interest
00:26:42.380
in learning how to do kiddush, it won't work. And the reality is most non-Jews, why would they not want
00:26:51.060
shake shack and, and, and just live an easier life? And I wouldn't want that burden upon them.
00:26:56.420
So in short, marriages have problems when you're aligned. Now imagine you're misaligned and you get
00:27:03.740
married and then you try to make it work. And then you have kids and your life is crumbling.
00:27:07.260
I don't, I don't need that. Like I'm going to try to avoid all that. So I'm going to try
00:27:11.480
to get as close as I can to culturally similar, religiously similar, and the rest of the problems
00:27:18.400
will be a little bit easier to tackle. Well, you're, you're speaking in a way that's
00:27:22.740
well wiser than your age, because actually there is a lot of scientific evidence that supports what
00:27:28.800
you're saying. And I actually talk about it in my previous book and the happiness book.
00:27:32.440
In one of the early chapters in the book, I talk about, you know, arguably the most important
00:27:37.540
decision that you'll make in your life that either imparts great happiness to you or the opposite,
00:27:42.640
great unhappiness is the choice of mate that you, you, you, you make. And the research is
00:27:49.440
unequivocal that when it comes to long, that the likelihood of long-term success. So I'll,
00:27:56.300
I'll say the fancy scientific term, but then I'll explain it easily. It's called assortative mating
00:28:01.460
or more colloquially birds of a feather flock together. So your point about being with someone
00:28:06.940
who shares your values is by far the biggest predictor. So if, if I happen to be, you know,
00:28:13.600
a staunch atheist and my prospective wife organizes her entire life around her religion,
00:28:20.280
to your point, yes, it's nice to think that love conquers all, but you really are starting on the
00:28:26.100
wrong statistical ground, right? Because statistically speaking, as you said, so many things can go wrong
00:28:32.000
in a marriage. And so to increase that, marrying someone that shares your values is spot on. Now,
00:28:37.280
I didn't know that you were Iraqi. Does that, do you speak any Arabic?
00:28:53.180
Well, I'm just overall very cool. How come you, you speak Lebanese accent? Where did you get that from?
00:28:59.780
So when I started working in Saudi, people would speak about me in front of me and it made me really
00:29:05.240
uncomfortable. And, and I'm a nosy, curious girl. I wanted to know what everyone was saying about me.
00:29:10.920
So I started learning the Saudi dialect, which was hard. It's a lot of like,
00:29:16.180
and like throating that I couldn't do, even having all the Hebrew experience. That was even a lot for
00:29:21.500
me. And by the way, Iraqi Arabic is similar. So speaking to, oh, by the way, there's a lot of Lebanese
00:29:26.940
in Saudi for work. Speaking to a lot of Lebanese Arabs, they were telling me that Lebanese is the
00:29:33.540
prettiest dialect and the easier dialect. It's like second easiest to Egyptian. So I started
00:29:40.120
studying that one, even though the Saudi slang is funnier. My favorite thing I've learned thus far,
00:29:46.380
I don't know if you know it, you know Ba'at Sabdi is?
00:29:48.560
It's literally, it's a Riyadh slang. It's not even Saudi.
00:30:00.160
So Ba'at Sabdi is like, instead of saying like, uh, I love you, or it's like a crazy exaggeration
00:30:07.000
of, I love you more than I value my liver, which is so funny to me. And now that's like,
00:30:13.780
literally what I tell my friends, like Ba'at Sabdi, and they're like, what? And I'm like,
00:30:16.640
I love you more than my liver. And it's like Lebanese has a lot of those slangs too. So
00:30:20.620
like, ya'ayouni, ya'albi, ya'ruhi, like all that fun stuff.
00:30:24.240
Oh, it's funny that you said this because I just did a satirical piece where I pretend I am the
00:30:31.540
typical, you know, Muslim prospective immigrant, you know, who first begs, and I just want to come to
00:30:38.780
your country and I love you. And I started off with ya'ayouni, ya'albi, ya'ruhi, which basically
00:30:46.240
means my, my heart, my eyes, and my, my soul, uh, and my life and so on. Um, so yeah, that's
00:30:53.760
beautiful. Speaking of Saudi Arabia, I've actually recently had several very warm interactions with
00:31:02.100
people from Al-Arabiya, uh, specifically. Yeah. I appeared on, do you know who Riz Khan is?
00:31:09.740
Probably by face. I'm not good at the name. So Riz Khan used to be the, I think the top anchor of CNN
00:31:17.660
global and BBC global, whatever, this sort of very distinguished, you know, uh, gentleman.
00:31:23.360
And now he switched to Al-Arabiya. And so he flew, he came from, uh, I think he was from Dubai though.
00:31:30.200
He came, uh, to do a show in person, uh, in Montreal. And I was actually, you know, concerned.
00:31:36.660
I said, is there anything you don't want to discuss? And he said, no, just have at it. And so we had a
00:31:43.580
very frank conversation. I mean, very measured, very proper, very professorial, but there was nothing
00:31:49.700
held back. And apparently he then told me that, you know, people in Saudi Arabia loved our conversation
00:31:55.960
so much so that I then appeared on several other Al-Arabiya shows. And now we're in discussion
00:32:01.500
about other projects. So my experience has been wonderful. How has, you know, the, the outspoken,
00:32:09.280
lovely, non-hijab Jewish girl in Saudi Arabia, how has it been going for you?
00:32:14.340
Wow. Uh, I've been now over 10 times, at least the first, first time I went to Saudi,
00:32:23.460
I actually flew from Tel Aviv. So I was very scared lay over in Dubai, then flew to Riyadh
00:32:28.780
by yourself. Yes. So both my parents were born in Israel, raised in America. So their passports
00:32:34.600
are Israeli and American, but it says born in Israel. So they were afraid to come. Um, I went by myself
00:32:41.300
and I didn't really leave my room otherwise, you know, other than like having to go to work or
00:32:50.020
getting a drink from the lobby. I literally remember the first two trips to Saudi, I didn't
00:32:53.860
leave my hotel. Now, granted they gave me like a four bedroom suite. So why would I leave my hotel?
00:32:58.780
But I was afraid to like, even show my face. Most women there are niqab fully covered, but there is
00:33:08.280
no law that you have to be. So I don't trust in niqab. I actually, I go like this. I would even
00:33:13.700
go on like a t-shirt. Like nobody really cares. Um, everyone there knows who I am that in short,
00:33:21.920
they know who I am. They know I'm a Zionist. They know I'm a Jew. And my response has not only been
00:33:26.660
pleasant, it's been above and beyond. And I hate when people are like, Oh, well, they're paying you to
00:33:30.860
say that. No, they don't. I don't work for the Saudis. I work for the zone based in the UK and the
00:33:35.700
fights that I cover are in Saudi. And here's a story that I like to share because I think it
00:33:40.160
shows a nice sense of like potential unity. My Yom Kippur last year was spent in Saudi. Now I
00:33:47.220
couldn't work that day. So I took off. I couldn't use the elevator. I couldn't eat. I was basically
00:33:50.820
just in my room all day, like reflecting on my past year. And three of my Saudi friends that work
00:33:56.480
for the sports company asked me, why aren't you coming to work today? And I explained to them
00:33:59.960
Yom Kippur is. And if you saw the feast that was awaiting right after Yom Kippur had ended and water
00:34:08.400
and snacks and gummy bears, and they made me this Egyptian dessert. And it was so incredible to see
00:34:13.500
that. Now they don't know what kosher is. Like they don't know the difference between kosher and
00:34:17.620
halal. They made me like a big camel. I had to tell them I couldn't eat it because it's not kosher,
00:34:22.360
but it was a thought that counts. And the point being, they had no idea what Yom Kippur was. It's not
00:34:27.220
their religion. It's not their problem. And they went so out of their way to make sure
00:34:30.720
that I spent it as comfortably as possible. And that's something I'll never forget.
00:34:35.720
Well, that's, you know, I'm so glad that you mentioned that story because one of the things
00:34:40.100
that I say when people ask me, you know, what is your sort of future prognosis of the Middle East?
00:34:44.880
I say, you know, if we can unleash, nevermind the cultural, historical, archaeological, you know,
00:34:52.480
potential of, but just the human potential, right? Because there are cultural elements to the
00:34:58.780
Middle East. I don't care what your religion is. Hospitality, to your point, that are, I mean,
00:35:03.680
yes, you could argue there are many cultures that are hospitable, but there is really something that
00:35:07.520
is unique about the Middle East. I mean, I come from there. If you come to our house for dinner,
00:35:13.100
it is a great insult if we don't, I mean, drown you in so much food that, you know, you're going to
00:35:21.180
have to go on Weight Watchers for the next six weeks, really to make up for that one dinner you
00:35:26.020
had. It's kind of the opposite mindset from the Western mindset where, you know, there are 10 people
00:35:31.540
coming for dinner. So there are 10 pieces of chicken. No, we have 680 dishes, right? And so,
00:35:38.200
and that is not specific to Lebanese Jews. It's specific to the Middle East. So if we can get rid of
00:35:44.880
all of the, you know, doctrinal hate that comes with, you know, religious dogma and so on,
00:35:50.440
the potential in that region is like no other. And so that's great. Are there other incredible
00:35:56.020
stories, uplifting stories that you could share from the Middle East that you've experienced?
00:36:00.840
Yeah. I mean, the respect goes both ways. So we really try for multiple reasons to avoid having
00:36:08.400
these debates in Saudi about Israel or Islam or Judaism. But I have one friend who we always go to
00:36:15.760
this really authentic Saudi spot and everyone's in niqab and I'm there. Don't get me wrong. I don't
00:36:20.740
dress around. I never dress immodest to begin with, our version of immodest. So I try to respect them
00:36:26.900
as well. I don't cover my hair because that's not something I would ever do right now. But one time
00:36:33.380
we got into the Judaism-Islam conversation and it wasn't a hostile conversation. It was more like,
00:36:38.380
let's point out the similarities and the differences. And obviously, Muhammad came up. And while
00:36:43.080
they're very well aware that we have no recognition of him whatsoever, it didn't really matter. It was
00:36:48.440
just like, I'm going to teach you. And then vice versa, I was teaching him. One conversation we had
00:36:53.880
was I was talking about Abraham sacrificing Isaac. And then they're like, no, he sacrificed Ishmael.
00:37:03.340
And I'm like, I'm pretty sure it was Isaac. And then we had to Google it. And then his version of
00:37:07.860
Google said Ishmael and mine said Isaac. And I'm like, do we kill each other now? No.
00:37:13.220
It was so nice because it's crazy. God, I can agree to disagree with people in Saudi,
00:37:20.640
but not in the United States. And it's like, how far have we lost our freedom of free thinking in
00:37:27.980
the United States? But I can have that so respectfully in Saudi, in a country that people
00:37:33.000
criticize for a dictatorship, that's the country I have the most thought provoking conversations.
00:37:40.760
Isn't that amazing? I mean, have you seen, I'm sure you've probably seen though, I don't, I don't,
00:37:44.400
I can't remember the names of this, these particular individuals, but there are several sort of viral
00:37:49.960
clips of men from the Gulf region, where they're saying, are you going to teach? I mean, we're,
00:37:58.540
we're Muslim, and we think the Muslim Brotherhood is so dangerous, and so on. And yet you imbeciles in
00:38:05.800
the West are completely hoodwinked. So it really is amazing that because those folks understand the
00:38:13.600
dynamics of some of those, you know, radical ideologies, they're able to put a doorstop to it,
00:38:19.060
whereas in the West, we're so kind and tolerant and empathetic.
00:38:22.460
Like, it's really, it's so true. I mean, this is something that only like people who are well
00:38:28.280
traveled, and my biggest advice to people is travel far and wide, try not to get taken hostage,
00:38:33.160
but travel very far and wide, because you learn so much, and it actually shifts your perspective in
00:38:38.440
a way that you'll never get from, definitely not from these little iPhones. The problem is not,
00:38:44.380
and I'll be honest, and a lot of like people get mad at me, it's not any religion. In fact,
00:38:48.980
atheists are a problem, but let's just say Islam, Judaism, Christianity is in the discussion.
00:38:54.820
Extremism is the problem, because if you really, you know, break down the true meaning of the Quran
00:39:01.720
that's exaggerated, and it's like, kill every person, it's not a Muslim, yeah, then you're a
00:39:05.680
fanatic. But you can do that in every single religion. Every religion, let's be honest, preaches
00:39:10.260
superiority. Every single one. Some respect other religions more than the other, but I genuinely
00:39:16.780
believe that no matter what religion you are, I'm like stating something so stupidly obvious,
00:39:21.120
if you're a good person, and you respect others, there's no problem. Like, I have never once in my
00:39:27.920
life cared that somebody's not Jewish. In fact, their religion is the last thing I care about them.
00:39:34.380
The only reason I'm excluding atheists from this conversation is I have an intrinsic problem with
00:39:39.920
atheism, that if you don't believe some power is greater than yourself, and you can't believe in
00:39:46.060
God, because either you're too arrogant, or I don't know, I think it's arrogance, genuinely.
00:39:51.900
If you don't think something's above you, you scare me as a person, because you don't have anyone
00:39:56.080
to report to. A lot of the times, we can all understand this, a lot of things that we do
00:40:01.780
or don't do is not because we're such a great person. It's because we have a fear of God. It's
00:40:06.260
because we have a fear of consequence. And I feel that atheists don't have that fear. So they're not
00:40:12.360
part of this conversation. But extremism at any regard, and this is politically too,
00:40:17.400
that's the real issue. And the extremism in the Middle East, and I'm talking Saudi, not like Syria,
00:40:22.520
Afghanistan, Libya, they're trying to become, I don't want to say more Western, because what Western
00:40:27.180
is becoming is not good. But they're just becoming more rational. They're understanding religious
00:40:32.820
diversity. They're understanding more dialogue and doing more business with people. Like, you can buy
00:40:39.200
real estate now in Saudi Arabia. As of January, you couldn't do that the last however many years.
00:40:44.680
And I feel like that's what more people need to strive to do not I'm right, you're wrong. Let's
00:40:49.200
say, hey, you know, it doesn't really matter. Let's respect one another.
00:40:52.380
Have you had a chance to meet any of the members, not necessarily the crown prince, but
00:40:57.020
any members of the royal family and had, you know, substantive conversations with them?
00:41:01.680
Yeah, I won't name names for his sake. But I met someone who is part of the Al Sauds. And he is an
00:41:11.240
incredible person. And he'll probably watch this. He follows me. He called me one day. And he said,
00:41:19.440
I understand why Israel just bombed Hezbollah. Justifiable. In fact, we thank you for that. We hate
00:41:24.680
Hezbollah. But what the hell did Gaza do to Israel? Yikes. And I was just like, I know he's not being
00:41:32.580
malicious because we're beyond that point. But does he really not know? So anyway, we get into like an
00:41:39.360
hour long FaceTime. I sent him the most graphic, horrific thing straight out of Hamas's telegram
00:41:45.040
group to his WhatsApp. He is white in the face, sick to his stomach. I'm surprised he hadn't seen
00:41:51.840
that prior to our conversation. And in our conversation, I was like, he said something
00:41:57.740
like, why does the IDF exist? And I said, to prevent another Holocaust. We have Israel. There's
00:42:01.780
no more, you know, fear of a Holocaust happening because we have a safe space, which is Israel.
00:42:06.820
And he said, what's that word? And I'm like, what word? Is it hologram? I'm like, Holocaust?
00:42:14.060
And I promise God, he wasn't being rude. He just genuinely, they don't have a Holocaust education,
00:42:19.500
you know? And, and I couldn't process the fact that he had never heard of it because something
00:42:25.320
that was so not important to my life, but something that I carried with me like so deeply is something
00:42:33.180
he hadn't even been aware existed. And when I told him what it was, you could see his whole mindset
00:42:38.800
changed. So he was a member of the Royal family. He was still very young to his credit. Like he had a
00:42:44.740
lot to learn. He just finished, I think his military service, but these conversations,
00:42:49.720
I think is what moves the needle in a more positive direction. Like I had Saudi friends
00:42:53.720
in the government telling me, I can't wait to go to Tel Aviv and I can't wait for them to come to
00:42:58.080
Saudi. You know, I wish more people could see what we're doing here and what they're doing there,
00:43:02.920
because I feel like I'm the vessel sometimes. And it really is something so beautiful that I wish
00:43:07.580
the world could see. And I'm talking, by the way, exclusively to Saudi. There's a lot of
00:43:11.480
countries I would not see the same. You know, this is about maybe five or six years ago. Do you know
00:43:17.620
who Hamid Abd al-Samad is? Do you know, does that ring a bell? No. He's Egyptian and his dad
00:43:27.160
was a, you know, hardcore, you know, imam in Egypt. And then Hamid left Islam, moved to Germany,
00:43:36.500
was pursuing a PhD, became an author, wrote several, you know, bestselling books in German,
00:43:42.920
criticizing Islam. And we became friends and he came on my show a few times. I went on his show.
00:43:49.320
His show is called in Arabic, Sandu al-Islam, which means the box of Islam. So he had come to
00:43:56.200
Montreal and said, hey, would you do a show with me in person? And so I said, sure. And so I went
00:44:02.220
to this hotel sort of area. And there must have been, I don't know, 20, 25 Muslim guys. It looked
00:44:10.280
as if, like, if you just look at it by judging the book by its cover, you think they're about to,
00:44:16.340
you know, behead me because it looks like a collection of guys, you know, straight out of
00:44:21.200
ISIS to stereotype. Meanwhile, they're all super fans. We're hugging it out. We're taking selfies.
00:44:29.320
And so, you know, meeting people, sharing a drink with them, having a meal with them tends to
00:44:36.020
demystify the other. I know it sounds like a cliche, but really it does amount to that.
00:44:44.760
Well, exactly. And because Arabic is my mother tongue, I've experienced this on endless occasions
00:44:52.300
in my life because suddenly, to them, I'm not really Jewish because how could a Jewish guy
00:44:59.680
act the way that I do and speak in the way that I do? And suddenly, I become like, wait a minute,
00:45:05.840
there are sort of cool Jews around like this guy. And so, yeah, that's the secret. All right,
00:45:11.460
let's set one or two more questions before I let you go. What are some... If I asked you,
00:45:16.220
maybe you don't do a five-year plan, but if I asked you, what does the horizon look like for
00:45:22.180
Emily Austin other than finding the incredibly lucky future husband and having a million Jewish
00:45:29.500
babies with him, what are some professional goals or personal goals that you have over the next...
00:45:38.000
I hope to have another year full of sports broadcasting while simultaneously pursuing the
00:45:44.640
Emily Austin show. And what I want to come about from that is similar to what you have going here,
00:45:49.020
which is like a space for open dialogue, but I don't want to limit it to politics or sports.
00:45:54.420
I really want it to be a current events space. So my first episode was Cuomo. My second episode
00:45:59.640
has no guests. My third one might have Ryan Garcia, the boxer, or Michael Porter Jr., the Brooklyn
00:46:04.540
Nets player to talk about... I know Ryan wants to talk about Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria,
00:46:08.920
and Michael wants to talk about sports gambling. So I just want it to be a space that everyone
00:46:13.880
has something to care about. And I hope that that really serves me long-term. I'm strongly
00:46:20.300
contemplating if I want to go into American politics, meaning like Congress or Senate,
00:46:25.040
given that I'm 24, I have time to think about it because I can't run right now, even if I wanted to.
00:46:31.260
And that's going to depend on... Honestly, it's going to depend on what the future of the Republican
00:46:37.480
party looks like. Because if we're going to trend towards the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and Tucker
00:46:42.940
Carlson's, that's not a space worth entering. It's not worth the pain and agony I'm going to go
00:46:48.280
through. But if somehow we can get back to the middle, which is wishful thinking, because if
00:46:53.320
we're not doing it under Trump, we're not doing it under anyone else, that's a place I definitely
00:46:59.900
Wow. Well, best of luck. I recently had the representative fine out of Florida on my show.
00:47:09.360
Ah, okay, great. So yeah, so we had a great conversation. So best of luck there. And now
00:47:16.740
Oh, maybe one day the first Jewish woman president. Emily, is that possible?
00:47:26.860
This is going to be a bit of a scroll, but it's worth it. We're going to find this. I posted
00:47:35.400
I'm finding it anyway. Look how far back this is. Hang on. Wait, oops, that's not it. Huh?
00:47:47.500
Wait a minute. Wait. Your first woman Jewish president. When was this? Look at that.
00:47:57.760
Well, from your lips to God's ear. Emily, such a pleasure having you. Stay on the line so
00:48:03.300
we can say goodbye offline. Come back anytime. Best of luck on your new show. You're a delight.