The Joe Rogan Experience - #1592 - Bryan Fogel

Episode Date: January 9, 2021

Filmmaker Bryan Fogel's "Icarus" won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2018. His newest documentary, "The Dissident", is an investigation of the death of Saudi Arabian "Washington Post" journalist Jamal Khashoggi, murdered at the hands of his own government. "The Dissident" is now available On Demand and in theaters.

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night! All day! Hey Joe. Good to see you again, buddy. Yeah man, this is good to be in Austin. I was just here yesterday with Jordan Burrows, Olympic gold medals in wrestling,

and we discussed Icarus. And he told me that he actually had to shut it off how let you do that because very clunky he told me he had to shut it off he couldn't handle it because he's an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling and he has faced people that he believes were cheating and particularly Russians and it drove him crazy so he was that pissed off yeah he literally... Well, it's his livelihood. I mean, it's everything. He's an Olympic gold medalist. He's a four-time world champion.

And he's convinced that he had to wrestle against people that were cheating, particularly Russians. You know, I've gotten a bunch of messages since that film came out from other Olympic athletes. And it's been either a mix of like, hey i'm thank you so much or it's just like not mad at me just like what the fuck and and then you know like like and i was actually like uh invited um it was the uh uh the bobsled team uh that when they actually disqualified the russian bobsled team and uh uh the u.s bobsled team was then going to get the the third place medal they like invited me to the ceremony i didn't go but you know it was uh crazy yeah well jordan said that the i guess in 2020 and 2024 the russians can't fly a flag like they they cannot they can't be represented like they have to be individual athletes from russia at at the olympics in 2020

and uh tokyo it's 2021 now yeah and then 2024 those olympics you can't have a Russian flag. Like you literally can't because of what happened that you exposed in your documentary. Well, that's, that's true. However, if you if you follow the the story post Icarus with Rechenkov, is Russia was supposed to turn over this LIMS data, which was this Laboratory Information Management System data, in order to be reinstated into World Sport. That was part of the WADA requirements. And they never basically turned it over. So WADA basically had to go after them, go after them, go after them. They reinstate them without turning over the data. Then they turn over the data. This is now

December of 2019 or January. It was not that long ago, about a year ago. And when they turn over the data, they had literally manipulated all the data and they had already got a copy of it from rachankov and another guy in the lab and they literally put notes into this limbs data basically trying to frame rachankov for like money laundering and taking bribes and all this shit but wada knew that this wasn't legitimate because they had the real databases already. So they go and they say, okay, now Russia's banned for another four years, right? Wow. And in the meantime, Russia is putting out in the media that Rechenkov has tried to commit suicide because of like the exposure that he was apparently, you know, taking bribes for money, which he wasn't.

Russia denies it again. And then it goes to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. This is literally just like a couple months ago. So they were supposed to be facing another four-year total ban. Like that's what WADA was recommending. Like the entire federation is gone. And the Court of Arbitration for Sport sport which is corrupt as hell basically knocks it down to two years instead of four years and then basically does what they did in the 2018 olympics which is okay any russian athlete who hasn't tested positive can compete but they can't compete under their country's flag but if you saw icarus how would you know whether or not they were positive or not because they were swapping out the urine. They were breaking into the bottles.

So it's like, yeah, they're kind of banned, and at the same time, they're all going to be there. And this was looked at like a huge win for Russia. In the meantime, Rechenkov literally sits in isolation, in hiding, under protection. But the guy just got asylum. He got asylum here, right? He got asylum here.

You don't have to wear the headphones if you don't want to. Are they uncomfortable? No, they just kind of were like echoing a lot. If there's a way to maybe take down the reverb on them or something, I like them. Echoing? Really? Do you hear echo? There's a volume control. Is that better? Yeah, I think that's better.

So Rechenkov has got asylum here in America? Yeah, so he's got asylum here in America. And that story is crazy, too. So, you know, in Icarus, you see this scene where basically, like, I see him off at the airport. And that was July of 2016. So we keep, you know, making the film. The film comes out August 2017. And then five months later, essentially because of the film, the IOC and their reasoned decision comes forward and bans Russia. And they cite Icarus as one of their main reasons for doing that. In the meantime, Rechenkov is literally trying to get political asylum. And on the day of his asylum hearing,

this was now a year and a half, two years ago, I need to get with his lawyers to get the exact date, ago. I need to get with his lawyers to get the exact date. Russia files drug trafficking charges against him in Russia on the actual day that he's supposed to go in for his asylum hearing. So what this means is that Russia had a mole within the U.S. immigration system, knowing that this was the day that Rechenkov was supposed to get his asylum. And under international law, anybody who's been charged with drug trafficking, right, is basically immediately ineligible for asylum. So there's like a couple of like, you know, things that you can be charged for that basically makes it you can't get asylum. So they charge him with drug trafficking.

And the court then gets kicked out. And it takes him another year and a half, two years to get his asylum. And he finally just got his asylum like four months ago, something like that. Wow. Crazy. And so, but he's still in hiding in hiding right because he's got to worry about being assassinated oh yeah i mean he's he's still in hiding i mean i've i've been able to keep in touch with a guy here and there through like basically through the lawyers and then

they'll arrange through the security and then we'll you know find an encrypted way to have a conversation. And last time I spoke to him was about two months ago, and the conversation always goes like, hey, Gregory, how are you? And he goes, I'm alive. And I go, well, that's great. And he goes, so how are you doing? He's like, Brian, Brian, I have to tell you.

He's like, you know, you saved my life. And I mean, it's heavy. It's really heavy. I mean, we've tried for three years now to try to get him a dog because, you know, he loves dogs and he lives by himself. And, you know, he really doesn't have communication with the outside world um my understanding is that he'll go out you know for like an hour a day for a walk with like protection around him um i don't know where he lives i don't i don't have his phone number um but his security you know doesn't want him to have a dog because if he has a dog, that means he has to, you know, go outside and he's got to walk the dog. He's not really able to communicate with his family. Hasn't seen his family for, you know, four years now. His wife

and his kids are back in Russia. So, I mean, this has been a crazy cost for blowing the whistle. Didn't they take his wife and his children, didn't they take their family home away? Well, after he got here and then all this started to unfold, what I was told is that they basically, froze the assets um of the family he had a dacha which is like a summer home and apparently they uh they seized that and they seized bank accounts um and they brought in the family to interrogate him, and they took their passports. From what I've heard is that his kids have their passports back, and the wife does too. you can make the logical conclusion that they're hoping that they travel,

because if they then travel and they then go and see Gregory, right, they're going to be able to find him. But, you know, to my knowledge, the family has been pretty much left alone. It was bad for a little bit, but over the last few years, I've heard that, you know, that they're okay, and, you know, none of the family wants to come, because even if they do, then that means that their lives are now in isolation, in hiding, then that means that their lives are now in isolation, in hiding. So for them to come and basically visit Gregory or to come and move to be with him because he could technically get his wife here now that he has asylum, but then her life is going to be in isolation, and she's got family back in Russia,

so it's complicated. And this goes on for the rest of his life? Well, I mean, arguably for the rest of his life. I mean, when you look at, you know, Michael Sherwitz of the New York Times did a story, I don't remember, it was probably about a year ago, and he was looking at all these kind of like murders that were tied to Putin and Russia. And one of the stories that he came out

with was basically this guy who was living in the Ukraine. He was working for the gas company, right? And he, I can't remember if he, it was an attempted murder or, no, the guy gets killed and they catch the guy, the assassin, who goes to kill him. And they put him up on trial. And when they catch this assassin, apparently he's got a piece of paper on him that's got a list of names, right? Of like, basically like, you know, like kill names. And this guy who they arrest, and I know I'm botching the story a little bit, and you can go back, it was in, you know, part of the New York Times Daily.

And this guy that they go and arrest basically goes, yes, I've been hired. I don't know why, but, you know, my job is basically to kill these people. So they start going through the list, and none of these people are really known. It turns out that the guy that he had been hired to kill in the Ukraine, who was now living like a normal life in the Ukraine, killing the Ukraine, who was now living like a normal life in the Ukraine, he had apparently helped broker weapons deal to the Chechens, right? And this was like, whatever, 15 years ago. And here, this guy's living this quiet life in the Ukraine working for the power company. And 12 years later later they come and get him. I mean, you look at the case of Skirpal, you know, the guy that they poisoned with Novichok a

few years in Salisbury. That was another case where, you know, the guy had... That was in England, right? Yeah, that was in England. The guy had been, you know, out of sight, out of mind for 15 years. You look at even the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Well, at the time that they actually poisoned Litvinenko with polonium, he had already been living in London for like seven or eight years. He had fled to the UK that long ago. So the whole piece that the Michael Schurz had wrote and put forward in the New York Times was essentially that, you know, they don't forget. And there's just, you know, a list and when they feel that they can strike, they do. One of the guys I've spoke to a lot who I've become a good friend is Bill Browder, who wrote Red Notice.

Have you read Bill's book? No. So crazy. So Bill was running this thing called the Armitage Fund in Russia. And he was American, but his parents were actually members of a communist party. He was American, but his parents were actually members of a communist party. And he sets up an investment fund in Russia during the, you know, as everything's kind of becoming whatever it is, open, right? And the fund is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into Russia. of dollars into Russia. And his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, basically uncovers this Russian money laundering fraud of something like 200 to 300 million dollars that the government,

but basically Putin, you know, was behind that it's stolen this money. And so Magnitsky basically tries to bring this forward. They murder Magnitsky. And Bill Browder has now spent the last, you know, 10 years of his life fighting for justice for Magnitsky's death. And the way that he's done it is he formed this Magnitsky Act. And the United States has it, Canada has it, countries all over Europe has it. And the United States has it, Canada has it, countries all over Europe has it, and they've now frozen hundreds and hundreds of millions of Russian, basically, assets tied to, like, you know, illegal this, that, and the other. And Browder apparently is the number one on the kill list, and he lives in London. But what is at dispute is whether or not it's Browder or whether it's Gregory Rechenkov. And according to intelligence agencies, these guys kind of flip places depending, you know, on the moment.

But Rechenkov is certainly, you know, a high-value asset. The stress on that guy must be incredible. I don't really know how he does it because he's such a... I mean, the guy that you see in the movie, that is who this guy is. He's so lighthearted. He's always singing like Donna Summer.

I mean, he's a goof. And yet, through all this, he remains this incredible optimist. I've got to see him two times in, I guess, the last three, four years. One was he had a 60th birthday, and his security and lawyers and all the stuff arranged this secret, like, birthday party for him. And I went to go visit him, and everybody who had helped and worked with him were there in this, you know, undisclosed location. I mean, they literally, like, blindfolded me. I mean, it was absurd. And he was so just happy. I think he is this guy who goes that every day that he is alive, in his mind, is another day that he was going to be dead. And so I think he has, it's hard to understand, but he just has a

different way of looking at life, I think, than I do, than you do, than like 99.9% of people on the planet do, that he wakes up in the morning and goes, I should be dead. And so I think he just lives with a different gratitude set. But what does a guy do? What does he do? He just hangs around so i guess the government takes care of him they give him food and he's just protected by guards all the time well that that's that's become uh a little bit complicated because um uh you know there's a

combination of private security and government, but government only will... We should stop right here and I should explain to people that don't know what we're talking about. That Gregory was the guy who, in your documentary, you did a race. You tried to do an Icarus, which is an amazing documentary if you haven't seen it. I recommend it highly. You did a race clean and then you were going to do a race all juiced up and you went to him and he was the head of the Russian Anti-Doping Federation. Is that what it is? Yeah.

So, so Gregory Rechenkov, um, basically the premise was, um, is, is I, I felt that the entire doping system in sport was a fraud. And the reason why I had this belief was I had followed Lance Armstrong my whole life. The guy confesses in 2013. But if you had actually followed that story, it's kind of like what you're saying about, you know, Russia's banned from the Olympics, but they're not really banned and they just can't wear their outfit. Well, in the case of Lance, well, yeah, he confessed to doping, but the guy to this day never was actually caught. And here's this guy who passed like, I don't know, five, six hundred tests. tests. So as he confesses, and I'd been a cycling fan, a lifelong cyclist, I'm going,

wait, wait, wait. You caught the guy based on a criminal investigation, but you didn't catch him based on the science. And if you can't catch the most tested athlete on planet Earth, well, what does this mean for every other athlete on planet Earth? And so the idea was, is I was going to do like a supersize me in the world, uh, in the world of, of, um, sport. I was going to race clean. And then the next year I was going to dope the hell out of myself. Take testosterone, HGH, EPO. I mean, uh, HCG, uh, I was up to do anything. I mean, I was, I was literally like ejecting with, like, you know, it was like 10 syringes a day.

It was just so stupid. And then literally, like, I'm going to get a blood test to, like, build my biological passport to, like, test my hematocrit. So, like, every other week I'm literally going to get my blood drawn. So like every other week, I'm literally going to get my blood drawn. I'm pissing to like, you know, build like my whole steroid profile to basically try to evade testing. So I get connected to this guy, Gregory Ruchankov. And at the time, he's running RUSADA, which is the, I'm sorry, the WADA lab, the World Anti-Doping Lab for Moscow, which is like the third largest, you know, anti-doping lab in the world at the time. This is now 2014, 2015. And Gregory basically is like,

yes, I'll help you dope and I'll help you evade testing. And I'll basically show you how you can game the system. And I'm like, this is nuts. Like the guy who just did all the testing for the Sochi Olympics and is running the entire anti-doping lab in Russia is basically going to like test my samples and show me how to cheat. Like what's going on here? So the two of us start working. He comes to the United States. He comes to Los Angeles. We have a great time. I then go do this next race completely doped out of my mind. And I'm like taking blood samples. I'm taking urine. And right after this race, I hop on a plane. I go to Moscow and I'm like hanging out with Gregory for like a month. And he takes all my samples into the lab. hanging out with Gregory for like a month and he takes all my samples into the lab.

And there was this investigation already going on and I was like, okay, something's off here. And so I spent this month in Russia and I come back. What was the investigation that was already going on? So in 2015, WADA releases in the, I can't remember exactly when it was it was like early uh like march of 2015 something like that the world anti-doping agency had already been investigating the moscow laboratory and they come out with this uh with this report that they believe that Gregory Wachankov was like the mastermind of this state-sponsored doping operation. And they've got a bunch of evidence, but they had no idea. It was like, I mean, they had like literally like the tip of a pinky and the size of the scandal was basically, you know, like an entire body. I mean, they literally just had the tip of the scandal was basically, you know, like an entire body.

I mean, they literally just had the tip of the pinky. But the tip of the pinky was so bad that they shut down the Moscow lab. Gregory is now the fall guy. He's forced to resign. And, you know, and Putin's basically on television going like, look, look, whatever you want to believe, none of this is true. We've never doped. We don't cheat. These are all lies.

Oh, and by the way, he says, anybody who is responsible for this crime will be punished. So basically, Putin is literally on television going gregory rechenkov is is going under the bus and gregory is in moscow and we had you know been working together he calls me up and he's like but i am but i i need to escape and i'm like um uh okay when when he's like, now. I need to leave now. And I'm like, now, as in now? He's like, yes, yes, I need the flight now. And I'm literally sitting there on Skype and I start doing a search for Moscow, Los Angeles. And I'm like, well, there's a flight in like 12 hours. And he's like, okay. I'm like, you want me to book that flight?

He's like, yes, book the flight. If I put it on my credit card, well, no, you'll have to put it on your credit card. So I literally booked this flight, put it on my credit card. And a day later, here's Gregory in Los Angeles. And about a month into him being in LA and you know shit's going down in Russia I'm like look man you got to tell me what happened and he opens up and you know and that's was Icarus I mean it was it's amazing it was crazy the way it unfolded in the documentary it's it couldn't have been

written better like if it was a drama it was a scripted drama it could not have been written better and the fact that it was all just circumstance just all happened all happened at the right time it's an amazing documentary and for a person like jordan burrows who was here yesterday it it, it was too much. He literally had to shut it off. I told, I convinced him to watch the rest of it.

I go, you have to, I go, it's so good. It's so crazy. It's, it's one of these things where I think if you were a professional athlete or, or a lover of sport,

um, it, it changes your whole perception because i think we were able to accept whatever lance armstrong cheated but we can still look at lance and go okay the guy did win seven tour de frances the guy everybody else was cheating they were were all cheating. And so in my mind, you know, I might catch shit for this. In my mind, Lance won fair and square. Everybody was cheating. All of his teammates were cheating.

Everybody that I talked to admitted to cheating. And the funny thing is, like, all the guys who raced with Lance during that generation, and I mean basically all of them. Like, you go and talk to them, and they go, and this is what half of Icarus was before I pivoted, was like, did Lance win fairly? And they're like, yes. Did he win seven Tour de Frances? Yes.

Was he a cheater? Yes. Were you a cheater? Yes. Is Lance the greatest cyclist to ever live? Yes. Was he a cheater? Yes. Were you a cheater? Yes. Is Lance the greatest cyclist to ever live? Yes. And I went, all right, that's enough for me. I mean, you know, the guy, you've got second place, third place, fourth place, fifth place,

tenth place, was all going like, hey, the guy won, and he won fair and square. I go, all right, Lance is redeemed, you know. But, you know, not to validate any of the other stuff that he did and the lawsuits and all that stuff but that's where it all went sideways for most people that's where it went sideways because everybody knows that everybody cheated it like the general public is aware that cycling is a dirty sport and they're also aware that if you take most people know that if you take away the gold medals or any medal from and from lance and you

try to find someone down the line who didn't test positive you have to get to 18th place or 100th place i mean it's crazy you know that was and that was kind of lance's argument all um all along which the lawsuits were the fucked up part. Which is, yeah, that he was basically became the scapegoat for a broken system. But it was, and I think Lance would tell you the same thing. I mean, it was the way that he handled it that got him in trouble and that he never knew when to say when. And, you know, that breaking point was when Floyd Landis, the guy who had been his teammate in 2000 through many years of his career, wins the tour in 2006. And he gets caught for doping, denies it, denies it, denies it.

And then he serves his suspension, comes back, and Lance has come out of retirement. The great hope. Because the cycling ratings, nobody gave two shits about cycling the second Lance retired. So he comes back and Floyd is like, hey, man, I've been silent. I never ratted you out. I served my time. Shit's really fucked up. I'm broke. Dude, let me on your team. And Lance was lance was like uh no bro you're a doper and uh and that is i think what uh what what was the uh what was the uh start of uh of the downfall but but i think what's so shocking about about icus is, and the Russian doping scandal, and probably for your buddy who was a wrestler, is when you go, wait, wait, every sport?

Every Olympic medal? Wait, they were, what were they not doping in? And Gregory's like, oh, well, we didn't dope the figure skaters. I'm like, well, why not the figure skaters? He goes, you know, because, you know, the testosterone and this, it makes the girls too big, too muscular. And, you know, we found the fine motor skills were not as good with the steroids. I'm like, well, okay what what else didn't you dope

it's like you know just pretty much all of them just the figure skaters so it was only figure skaters they didn't dope and apparently um i would have to go back and do my fact checking there was a few others like you know like um i mean i think i mean they were like even doping like the curdling team i mean you know it was like you know it was i mean i mean you know and he said you know how are you going to out cheat us with russian we're the best cheaters in the world and and but but the way that they looked at it in the way that you know the i think it's just that that kind of russian mentality is is he never really saw it as really doing something wrong. He saw it as that everybody else was cheating too.

And so this was just a game to out-cheat everyone else who was cheating. And I think that that probably comes from the mentality of Russia before the fall of communism, which is this survival mechanism. And even if you look at modern Russia, which, you know, I love Russians. I love Russia. Unfortunately, I don't think I can go back there. But I mean, I just I love the culture. Did you imagine going back there how paranoid you'd be? I heard a crazy story a couple years ago. I'm not going to tell you who. So a buddy of mine who's Russian, and he lives there, well-known guy. And he calls me up and he goes, brother, so I just got back to Moscow

just got back to Moscow and I leave the airport and I'm in my car and I get pulled over by like an unmarked police car. And I'm sitting there going, okay, what's the problem? And the officer says, wait right here. And he comes back to the car and he shows me a photo of you and he goes do you know Brian Fogle and I said well yeah I mean I I know him I mean we're acquaintances we're don't really know him that well we're Facebook friends and the guy gave me his card and told me that the next day that I had to show up for basically a meeting, which I guess arguably was like the FSB. And my buddy told me that he essentially, because he's a pretty well-known, successful guy there, basically made some calls and was like what the fuck is going on and uh and uh they he didn't go in and they they let it go but um what was nuts is that it took him

a year after that happened to tell me that that happened. And I've been working on some other projects, and it's interesting, the story in Russia, like if you speak Russian and you're like pulling archival news footage, I mean, there's been so much on like me, and there's like crazy animations they've done with Rechenkov as they paint him as, like, said that Rechenkov was basically working for the CIA and that they had drugged him to get confessions from him and that the entire doping operation was a ploy to basically try to stop him from getting elected and basically played the election playbook that this was U.S. intelligence agencies trying

to disparage Russia and that Rechenkov was a pawn I mean it's that crazy that crazy so you're not going to Russia you know I mean obviously your documentary put more light on it

than the initial investigation would have I mean without your documentary it never would have the amount of people that watch that documentary I know it's in the millions and it was a huge hit for Netflix. I was told that it's had 700 million views.

What? That's so crazy. Well, it makes sense. I mean, it's an international story. When you're talking about sports and the Olympics, it's one of the biggest sources of national pride for these countries to win the olympics to win a gold medal in olympics to have their team or their athlete win a gold medal in olympics and to find out that russia had rigged the entire olympic games for their athletes for decades like not just like one or two Olympics, but like all of them. There's a story that when Russia went to the Olympics in Korea,

I think it was like 1988, like Korean Games, they basically took a passenger cruise ship and they had all these wealthy russians on the ship i mean this is before the fall of russia and rechenkov was on the ship because all the athletes were on the ship too and they had the whole doping lab set up on the ship and they literally there was a coffee bar on the ship and they were able to put their uhwlett Packard, basically, steroid detection devices, they look like espresso machines, in the coffee bar, so that Rechenkov could basically test the athletes. And because the athletes were basically with all the other Russians, and they basically argued that it wasn't safe for the athletes living on, you know, in the Olympic Village, that the athletes were able to live on this ship during the 88 Korean Games. And Russia swept the Games.

The United States came third. And this was another one of Gregory's very, very proud moments in his life. And, oh, my God, these stories just go on and on and on and on and on. Jordan Burroughs thinks they're still doing it. He lost to a Russian in 2016 in Rio, and he said on the podcast yesterday

he believes the Russian was on some shit. Well, it's plausible because in the film there's this guy, Nikita Kamayev, who was running RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency he's murdered in february of 2016 this was gregory's best friend and this was basically two months before we go to the new york times with this story and that decision for us to you know ultimately go to the New York Times, which we had planned to do, but once Nikita was dead and we were going, okay, we've got to protect our guy. We've got to bring this public.

We've got to get him into protection. This is really, really dangerous. And so Nikita was running Rusada, and as Russia gets reinstated into sport, they bring on this new guy. His name's Yuri Ganos. And Ganos is like, I don't work for the state. I'm independent.

I'm not corrupt. Nobody's going to corrupt me. I'm going to say it how it is. So over the last two years, Ghanos has been running Rousada. And Russia has kept pulling their tricks. And Ghanos has come out publicly going, this is what's going on. So about three months ago, Ghanos was forced to resign. They tried to frame him with money laundering and bribery.

You can go and follow this story because Ghanos was basically coming out and going, hey guys, things are still fucked up. So who's running Rusada now? Who knows? The game continues. So how do they skirt i mean if they're not doing what they did in sochi where they're taking the dirty urine out and replacing it with clean urine how are they manipulating the testing results well i i i don't know, and I certainly wouldn't want to be, you know, leveling false accusations. All that I know is that in, like, the two years that in total disarray, it's actually, you know, become easier in some ways.

On the other hand, I view it as just kind of a continual cat and mouse game, you know, that, okay, great. You know, you figure out how to test for one substance. Well, there's another substance. If it's not that, it's going to be genetic engineering and doping. Yeah. I talked to Jordan about that yesterday. I said, I'm really concerned about that.

I think that's the future. And I think the United States is not going to do it, but I think China and Russia and some other places are going to do it. They're going to do some genetic engineering on their athletes, and we're going to have a fucking giant team of LeBron Jameses, perfect athletes. That'll be something to watch. I would watch that. Who wouldn't?

I mean, that actually sounds pretty cool. It does sound pretty cool. I mean, that sounds like gladiator games or something. I mean, I got to tell you, I mean, you know, the flip side of that is, I mean, that'd be amazing. You know, just a team of just perfect specimens, all genetically engineered to like battle each other. That's like Terminator stuff. Well, I think it's the future. I really do. I mean, with CRISPR and the upcoming iterations of it, whatever, you know, future innovation comes forth with genetic manipulation.

innovation comes forth with genetic manipulation i think they're going to be able to turn on genes turn off genes edit things make it so that you really have the best of all worlds and including intelligence and i mean even maybe possibly discipline i mean they might be able to engineer discipline into people which is already they already are i actually developed this docu-series that I just, we went out and sold it and I just haven't had the time to go and put the time into it. exploring firsthand these frontiers in, you know, performance enhancing, but it's really more human evolution, which is, you know, you've got so many guys out there, whether it's, um, what's a guy, Dave Osprey or whatever, Bulletproof Coffee, um, um, or, uh, who's the, or who's the guy who just got under all that trouble. He was living in Bermuda. Peter, what's his name?

It's a crazy story. He's like this Peter Nygaard, who is now caught up in all this Me Too stuff and all this stuff, but he has like an island in the Caribbean. It's basically like Genetic Mutation Island, where he spent hundreds of millions of dollars basically to get himself to live forever oh jesus and how old is he 79 what does he look like 79 looks like look at this guy give me a picture i want to see a jack 79 year old did you yeah yeah let? Yeah, yeah. There he is!

There he is! Is he 79? That's amazing. Yeah, I guess he's spending Christmas in jail. Is he? Yeah. What is he going to jail for? Jesus Christ.

He's odd-looking. I don't know. But this guy literally has spent like hundreds of millions of dollars. Fashion mogul Peter Nygaard pleads for bail citing allergy to sugar one day ago oh sex traffic okay but now but now go into but now do a search on peter nygaard basically oh my god he's worth 900 million look at that 79 years old wow uh basically uh i don't know human longevity or something i mean genetic yeah i mean put human longevity i want to see what we got human longevity here we go longevity project yeah there it is give me some images fighting aging lifespan io there it is so he's got a website. So this is his thing.

He looks pretty goddamn good for a 79-year-old. For a 79, yeah. I mean, the dude's six years older than my mom, and he looks... Nygaard Biotech. Here it is. Log in. Oh, I gotta log in. Damn.

Anti-agent reverse. Can I see some more images of him? Let me see some more images. If you look at the guy without a shirt, he looks good. I want to see him without a shirt. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Look at the Navajo outfit. Pull up.

Oh, he's got one of those. Pull up shirtless. Give me shirtless, Jamie. I was hoping I would just be there. Come on, buddy. Well, he looks like shit there. Is that him? I mean, like, for a 79-year-old, not bad.

Hang on. Oh, jeez. What? That one. Which one? I don't know. Where's the party? Oh, that right there?

Is that him? Yeah. Well, that's what everybody wants to do. They don't want to party with a bunch of hot women. Yeah, he doesn't look that good. No, I mean... But he looks like he's got some energy. That looks great.

I mean, look, I mean, come on. He looks photoshopped, though, too. Like he's for, like, a... No photoshopping, no. He's like Fabio on the front of a romance novel I mean, look. I mean, come on. That looks photoshopped, though, too. Yeah. Like, he's for, like, replacing Fabio on the front of a romance novel. Right. Right, right. That's the Nygaard building. Yeah.

Okay. So they're juicing it up a little bit there. Who's that beautiful girl in the lower right-hand corner? Right there? Lower? Lower? Right below that? Right below that?

Yeah. Who's that? His ex-girlfriend Wow pretty fucking hot for creepy looking old dude congratulations Peter well I guess time will tell whether or not Peter lives forever but in jail yeah he's not gonna be able to yeah he doesn't have his blood boy or anything. Right. Oh, yeah, he gets off the sauce. What, what, what, Jamie?

What? This is an accusation being made against him. What is the accusation? It's on the screen. Oh, accused of hiring sex worker to rape his teen sons. Well, that's not good. Okay. Anyway, so this guy is spending a lot of money trying to stay alive i think the real thing is fetuses though the real thing is like taking like in in utero like in an actual embryo and doing something to it and developing a fully grown human being with like myostatin inhibitors and

all sorts of other well that is the whole um future of this which is um basically going into the embryo before you're yeah before you're born and going hey i want to have blue eyes i want to be six foot three i want to have blonde hair I never want to have Parkinson's I never want to have Alzheimer's um I want to you know have 150 IQ I want to have lean muscle mass I you know I don't want fat cells I don't want to have breast cancer I mean on and on and on and and a lot of those technologies um are available I mean just like you can go clone your dog um a lot of those technologies are available. I mean, just like you can go clone your dog. A lot of these things are there if you've got enough money and willing to go to some subversive lab. I mean, there was that story a few years ago.

Is there really a lab that can do that right now? Like, say, if your wife is pregnant, you really can go and have the body manipulated to the point where you can make something like that that's really possible well i i know that there's a lot of things that you if you go and do the research for i don't know what the cost is but i know that you can see to it that your kids have got blue eyes and that you're going to be taller you really can do that you can manipulate eye color in the room and that you're not going to like lose your hair and you know they can do that. You can manipulate eye color in the womb. And that you're not going to lose your hair. They can do that right now? They're starting to do all that.

Because they understand the gene sequencing and the properties in your DNA that cause you to grow, that cause you to have lean muscle mass. So I don't know exactly how much of it's available. It's on the way. It's on the way. It's on the way, and I'm guessing that China's already like... Oh, my God. Yeah, there's going to be 20 years from now. They're already planning the Olympics 20, you know. 2040.

Right, 2040. They're like literally going like... Super athletes. Yeah, they're just going like, ha-ha. Well, that's a concern, that long game, you know. What is that thing the Afghanistan people used to say during the war? The Americans have all the watches, but we have all the time. I'm thinking about that.

Playing the long game. Well, China, I mean, one thing, I mean, China does play the long game. Yeah. They play the long game. Russia plays the mean, China does play the long game. Yeah. They play the long game. Russia plays the long game. Putin plays the long game. He obviously does with these assassinations. Yeah.

Or somebody, maybe not him, whoever's doing it. Yeah. I mean, it was interesting. I mean, it was interesting. So, Novani, right, the guy that he poisoned a few months ago in Germany with Novichok, right? This is the guy who was the, you know, like his top guy to threaten his presidency, you know, the opposition leader young guy he's like 40 42 something like that and so he's in germany and uh he gets poisoned well it turns out that they put the poison in his underwear and um you know this story has been going on and on and and not only that um they know who poisoned him what russian agents poisoned him and he set up a whole call. It's a whole crazy story. But the bottom line of this Novani thing is, so Putin's interviewed about, did you poison Novani? And he goes, absolutely not. They go, well, but what would you have to say to him? And he goes, well, you know, he is a traitor

and treason is the most serious crime and should be punishable. So, I mean, there it is. I mean, it's literally right there. So I didn't poison him, but traitors should be punished. didn't poison them but traitors should be punished and you know that that clearly sketchy place to live and with that we we transition to the dissident terrifying documentary and maybe equally disturbing was the difficulty in distributing it. Icarus won Academy Award, right?

Multiple awards, more than one award, not just the Academy Award. Won the Academy Award in 2018. Won the Edward R. Murrow Award for journalism, was nominated for three Emmys. I was nominated for the Director's Guild Award, nominated for the BAFTA, the British Academy Award, and won two awards out of Sundance, a bunch of others. Yeah, and it's really good. Thank you. And I've said that multiple times on the podcast without you being here, so I'm not just kissing your ass.

It's really good. It's jaw-dropping. So you would think that another documentary coming from Brian Fogle would be well-received, especially one that's as good as the dissident but you're having a really hard time distributing this well the dissident actually releases today January 8th on video on demand so it's it's oh yeah you can enter the site there. In theaters and at home on demand. Is it on iTunes?

It's on iTunes, Comcast, Charter, Vudu, Xbox. But not Netflix. Yeah, there it is. Fandango, Amazon Prime. Oh, it is on Amazon Prime. Yeah, but you have to, well, not Amazon Prime. Amazon, it is on Amazon Prime. Yeah, but you have to... Well, not Amazon Prime. Amazon, you have to rent it. So basically, it came out today for rental or for sale,

but it's not on any of the streaming platforms. It's not on anywhere where you would have a subscription. But iTunes, you can get it on... That's a streaming platform, so you can get it on this that's a streaming platform so yeah you can you can rent it you can rent it today for i think it's 1999 um and you can there it is redbox microsoft voodoo fandango but it says prime video yeah but if you click on it it's uh it's it's a rental oh but you can still stream it yeah there it is rent but you can still stream it but says buy um yeah you could buy it for 25 you can stream it for for or rent it for 1999 but it's

not it's not on netflix or on like amazon prime as as part of their subscription uh base so meaning like oh you don't get it for free exactly like like if you're if you go on netflix everything is you know part of your subscription or if you go on let's say apple right and you have that five dollar a month subscription to apple right you have all of apple's content and original programming or same with amazon if you have an Amazon Prime membership, you get all of those Amazon series. Like Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Fleabag. Yeah.

Zero, zero, zero. Right, but they do that a lot with films where you have to pay for the film. I mean, it's particularly with Apple, right? Well, what happened with The Dissident is, you know, the film is kind of the untold story behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. You know, the Washington Post journalist walks walks into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 and is murdered. I mean, just the most horrific, ghastly murder. He walks into the consulate. They basically, you know, strangle him, start embalming him as he's alive, and kill him. They were embalming him while he was alive?

Yes. Because they wanted the blood to coagulate, because they then dismembered him and cut him into pieces to get him out of the consulate. And this was ordered by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. That's proven that he ordered it? Well, yeah, I think we have to go and say, do we believe the CIA?

Do we believe British intelligence, French intelligence? Do we believe Turkish intelligence? Turkey, there was a listening device in the consulate. We don't know how the consulate was bugged, but it was bugged. And so the entire audio of Khashoggi's murder and even the planning of his murder was captured by the Turks and I obtained the transcript as part of making this film and there were independent investigations conducted Agnes Calamard of the UN of course the Turks CIA and all of them concluded with a very, very high level of confidence that MBS ordered the murder. And if you understand how Saudi Arabia works, right, I mean, this is considered an absolute monarchy. This is an authoritarian regime, right?

absolute monarchy. This is an authoritarian regime, right? And you have probably 90%, you know, and I'm making up this statistic, but something of the entire wealth of a country controlled by one family. So the idea that you could send 15 people on private jets owned by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia traveling on diplomatic passports. People in the kill team. One of the guys was Mutreb, who was Mohammed bin Salman's personal security, head of security. personal security, head of security. Other guy was Al-Tabaji, who is the state forensic examiner and coroner who came with a bone saw. Another guy, al-Asiri, is one of the top-ranking generals. And the list goes on and on. And so the idea that you could have this carried out without the approval of the crown prince would be staggering to believe. I mean, it's next to impossible because who else would order this crime? this crime, and especially when you're dealing with an absolute monarchy, anybody who did this without that sort of permission, right? I mean, Saudi Arabia carried out 800 beheadings last year.

So talk about off with your head. It's unfathomable to think. 800 beheadings? Yeah, and most of these beheadings were of essentially dissidents or activists. I mean, you have a society that on the outside, You have a society that, on the outside, Muhammad bin Salman has spent hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, to promote this image as a great reformer. And on one hand, he is a reformer. He's a young, I think he's 33 years old now, prince. And he's starting to open up the country for tourism. There's concerts. He's been trying to get big musical acts there, Formula One racing,

movie theaters. All of this was never in Saudi Arabia before. On the other hand, this guy, as part of his, I don't know what you want to call it, consolidation of power, has cracked down on dissent and freedom of speech and freedom of opinion and freedom of journalism, unlike any other, you know, previous monarch. And Jamal Khashoggi spent most of his life working for the Saudi royal family as a journalist, right? And he was going back and forth from Washington to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia to London, and basically helping facilitate U.S.-Saudi relations, writing about the kingdom, writing about policies. He was fluent in English. He was educated at Ohio State University, had an apartment, a condo in Virginia, right outside of Washington, D.C. And he essentially spent his life working for the royal family.

And so Muhammad bin Salman comes into power power and Khashoggi is essentially writing I love the crown prince I love my country but I'm seeing that what is happening in this country is on one hand there's a lot of positivity and a lot of good things are happening. And on the other hand, his friends are being arrested for simply having a freedom of opinion. Activists and anybody who literally was not supporting Mohammed bin Salman, and when I say not supporting, there are multiple stories of just a celebrity, a well-known journalist, a well-known person who had a huge Twitter follower. And if he wasn't willing to consistently post how great Mohammed bin Salman, you know, is or was, this guy was literally arrested. So the government basically,

you know, went to all of their known figures and said, you have to support the crown prince. And if you don't, you're basically going to go to go to prison. And so they have to support him, meaning like they would tell them when to post things through through social media, you know, because Twitter in Saudi Arabia, eight out of 10 people are on Twitter. Really? Right. So what we think of as Twitter now is essentially the platform for Trump to basically... Not anymore. I think they locked him out of his account.

Yeah, I think they opened him back up today. Oh, good idea. Shame on Jack Dorsey. today. Shame on Jack Dorsey. But, you know, he's back at it, I think, today. So it'll be interesting to see what comes. I mean, gosh, it was so, so nutty. But so the Arab Spring in 2013, right, happened because of Twitter, which what we don't think about in this country is we think, oh, hey, we have freedom of speech, we have freedom of opinion, we can write what we want. And if I write, you know, Joe Biden's the worst man on planet Earth, nobody's coming to arrest me. Or if I write Donald Trump should go to jail, nobody's coming to arrest me. Or if I write, Donald Trump should go to jail,

nobody's coming to arrest me, right? Well, in Saudi Arabia, anything having to do with the government or taking an opinion against the government is essentially a crime. So the entire country is on Twitter because on Twitter, you can create 20 accounts, you can create 30 accounts. And if you have a VPN or whatever like that, you can be whoever you want to be. You can be, you know, Joseph, Muhammad, Sultan, Abdulaziz the 15th, and you can just create that as your Twitter handle and you can have 20 accounts. And so Twitter is the last bastion for essentially free speech and for, you know, basically opinion. And this is why the Arab Spring happened, because millions and millions of youth and

activists around the Middle East in 2013 took to Twitter and were able to activate. They were able to organize. They were able to plan their demonstrations and ultimately their revolution. Well, Saudi Arabia realized this, that this was a huge danger to basically the monarchies in the Middle East. This is a huge danger to the Emiratis. This is a huge danger to basically the monarchies in the Middle East. This is a huge danger to the Emiratis. This is a huge danger to Saudi Arabia, a huge danger to, you know, whatever you want to call it, Oman, Iran, you know, where you have these monarchies in place. And so Saudi Arabia started to develop a policy under Mohammed bin Salman to basically take control of the public sphere,

basically take control of the messaging on Twitter. So they hire thousands of trolls, basically people to work for the government, sit in a room, and we have photos of these rooms. Actually, their main room that they do this was the room that when Trump visited Saudi Arabia, and you see that photo of him with his hands on the orb, that really weird photo next to the king and they're looking up. That's actually like the main room where they're manipulating Twitter. Crazy. of these employees basically to go onto Twitter, create thousands of false accounts, and basically push forward Mohammed bin Salman's narrative. MBS is the greatest thing to ever happen to the country. We love MBS's policy. Vision 2030. MBS is changing the country. And so while they're doing this, they're also monitoring the accounts of anybody who is speaking poorly of MBS and arresting these people and tracking them down and throwing them in jails.

So Khashoggi essentially was criticizing Mohammed bin Salman, at the same time liking him. And he gets this order from this... At the same time liking him. Liking him saying, hey, I like the royal family. A lot of things that this guy's doing is good. However, the opinion of one man and the leadership of one man and only one man is never good for our country. And what he had seen in the previous, you know, kings or princes, right, was that, yes, they were the monarch, but they would listen to other opinions.

There was more of a form of, you know, a parliament. was more of a form of, you know, a parliament. And what he saw with Mohammed bin Salman was not only, you know, the crackdown at the Ritz-Carlton, where MBS, you know, literally in a mob operation, rounds up all of his cousins and half-brothers and family members and all of the wealthy people in Saudi Arabia and basically holds them in prison at the Ritz-Carlton. Stories have emerged of these, many of these people being tortured and basically shook them down for tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars and basically went, I'm the crown prince, you're going to give me half, you're going to give me your money, or you're not leaving the Ritz-Carlton. And that was one of his major ways to consolidate his power, and so that nobody

would go against him. So Khashoggi is seeing this, and he's ordered by the henchman, ordered by the henchman, Mohammed bin Salman's cyber henchman, Saad al-Qahtani, to remain quiet, to shut up, stop tweeting, stop writing, stop posting, shut up. And it gets so serious, he realizes that he's going to be rounded up and thrown in a jail. And he flees the country. He goes into self-exile. He takes a job at the Washington Post writing as a global opinions columnist for the Washington Post. This is now basically the end of, I'm going to mess up the dates, but this is sometime in the fall of 2017. And starts publishing columns in the Washington Post where he is critical of the Trump-Saudi relationship. And he's writing critically of Mohammed bin Salman, of what's going on in the country, because so many of his friends are being arrested. So many of the people that he knows are all of a sudden being silenced. And at the same time he starts working with the

Saudi dissident to Montreal, Omar Abdelaziz. He's 27 years old. He went to school when he was 19 in Canada because Saudi Arabia, their way into the future is to educate essentially their people so that they're not going to be 100% reliant on oil. And because they have trillions and trillions of dollars, they can pay for the educations of any of their good students to go outside of the country to be educated under the promise that if we pay for your education, you're going to come back to Saudi Arabia, right? And take your education and help our country, you know, grow. So Omar Abdulaziz is one of these guys. He goes to Montreal at 19.

He's studying at McGill. at 19. He's studying at McGill, and he literally goes on a foreign exchange program, and the first family that he goes to live with is a Jewish family in Montreal. And Omar goes, you know, obviously from what he had been thought to believe, you know, growing up in Saudi Arabia and, you know, Israel and Jews and stuff. And all of a sudden Omar's in Montreal and he goes, wait, these people are nice. I like these people. And he also is being ingrained into Western philosophy, into a democracy, into a, you know, into a free way of being. And he starts taking to Twitter, basically, why isn't Saudi Arabia like this? Why isn't my country like this? Why don't we have freedom of speech? Why don't we have freedom of opinion? Why does our country have to be like this? And he starts growing his Twitter

following. He goes back to Saudi Arabia because his mother has cancer, and while he's there, he's continuing to tweet. And his father, who's working for Saudi Arabian intelligence, gets a call and goes, you need to bring Omar in to meet with us. And his father, knowing what this is, knows that, you know, they're basically going to arrest his son or silence his son or, you know, basically make it that his son can never leave the country. And Omar decides to head back to Canada. This was now six years ago, seven years ago. And he returns back to Canada. He's grown his Twitter following to, I think he has 600, 700,000 followers, and starts tweeting, you know, against essentially Saudi Arabia,

the kingdom, freedom of speech. And Jamal Khashoggi, as he now is living in self-exile, reaches out to Omar Abdulaziz because Omar is now this voice of the youth. And Jamal wants to basically, you know, see how he can change his country. And what Omar tells him is that because what had been happening is every single time that Jamal would send out a tweet, and Jamal has 1.75 million Twitter followers, hundreds and hundreds of responses come onto his Twitter feed, you know, go to hell, you should burn in hell, you should die, you're a traitor. And Jamal is thinking that his whole country is turned on him. What he doesn't realize is that this isn't real. These are the Saudi flies, the trolls that the government has hired to basically quash his Twitter account and

basically have their own hashtags trending. So Omar understands this and he tells Jamal, he goes, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't real, Jamal. This isn't real. This is what the government's doing. We know this. Let me show you. So Omar and Jamal start working together and Jamal agrees to fund Omar Abdulaziz money to basically start buying thousands and thousands of SIM cards, Canadian and US SIM cards that they can put, that they can send to Saudi Arabia, right? So that you can't track where, where the phone is coming from, because it'll look like a US or Canadian SIM card, and also distribute among dissidents or, you know, all over that are not living in Saudi Arabia to start fighting the government trolls on Twitter, that they can send out basically

their tweets and go, this is what's really happening, and basically fight fire with fire. Well, they hack Omar's phone, the Saudis, with Pegasus, which is Israeli cybersecurity software, which Israel is basically selling through this company, NSO, to any government that essentially wants it because it gives Israel spying technology because now they know who Saudi Arabia is interested in. And they hack Omar's phone with Pegasus. They hack Jamal's phone with Pegasus. They hack Jamal's phone with Pegasus. Now the Saudis know what Jamal and Omar are working on on top of anything else that Jamal is doing and arguably this leads to Jamal's murder and they actually come to Canada a few months before trying to, before murdering Jamal and try to rendition Omar back to Saudi Arabia. And this is all, you know, in the movie, The Dissident, and just a crazy, devastating

story. Now, did they ever contact Jamal and tell him to stop? Well, they did. Now, did they ever contact Jamal and tell him to stop? Well, they did. Saad al-Qahtani had reached out to Jamal, and they reached out to him again when he was in the United States, basically threatening him and saying, you need to stop.

But Jamal, I think having worked for the kingdom for so many years i think he viewed there would maybe be a threat of rendition there would be a threat of uh you know you were gonna uh i don't know try to bring you back but i don't think he ever could imagine that they were gonna murder him in his own country's consulate. Why do you think they did that with him? Like, why did they treat it as such a hostile act, that they were willing to be so brazen? Well, I think you have to look beyond just this specific murder, and you have to look at what has been happening in our global landscape, which is essentially that what we have learned, essentially, from Russia and Putin.

Here's the poisoning in 2006 of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium, basically nuclear poisoning. And while Britain determines 100% that it's Russia, they know it's Putin, they don't do anything about it. It's a smack on the wrist, right? Because you go, okay, well, what is really Britain or the UK or the US really going to do about this? Are we going to go to war with Russia? No. Are we going to cut off all business relationships? No. Are you going to impose spectacular sanctions and this, that, and the other? Probably not. And so basically, Putin gets away with this crime. He gets away with all the other

crimes. You know, the poisoning of Kim Jong-il's brother, you know, at the Malaysian airport a few years ago, right? Gets away with it. And so if you look at this authoritarian playbook over the last, whatever you call it, you know, 15, 20 years where everything is kind of reported and everybody's filming with their phone and everybody's on, you know, the internet, is that MBS believed that he could get away with this, right? Meaning, what are you going to do against Saudi Arabia? We have trillions of dollars. We invest trillions of dollars. And really, what are you going to do against us? Now, at the same time, you know, the Trump administration and Kushner are very close with the royal family. Whether you like or dislike Trump, this is just a flat-out fact. Mohammed bin Salman. He vetoed both the House of Representatives and the Senate passing legislation that was going to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia because they buy hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons from us. Saudi Arabia is the single biggest purchaser of weapons

from the United States. So they block hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons from the United States. Okay, so they block hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons from us, and Trump vetoes it. At the same time, they're trying to pass legislation to sanction Saudi Arabia against the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Trump vetoes it. And on top of that, in Bob Woodard's book that came out a few months ago, there's audio tapes of Trump going, I saved Mohammed bin Salman's ass. And if you've followed the news over the last few weeks, the Trump administration has put forward to the Justice Department a request for immunity against prosecution for Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudis, you know, whatever else, when he leaves office, that Biden would not be able to go

try and be able to prosecute Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Khashoggi or other crimes. And this is pending right now with the Justice Department. So these are facts. And, you know, Justice Department. So these are facts. And, you know, in the film, the admonishing of Trump comes from Bob Corker, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham. So you have essentially our country and, you know, bipartisan support across Congress to basically reassess this U.S.-Saudi relationship, which our government is viewing toxic. And you've had the Trump administration basically going, no, no, no, we're going to protect this guy. And the reason why I tell this story is I believe that they believed, Mohammed bin Salman, that they could kill Khashoggi and get away with it. And the biggest thing that they would have been worried about is that the United States would have taken action.

And they knew that they had safety with the Trump administration. Did Trump make any statements, any public statements about what he thought happened or what he was going to do about it? Well, yeah, many. going to do about it well yeah many i mean you know uh after he uh obtained the cia uh findings of this murder and the cia basically said um i don't remember what it was with with um certainty uh you know with with a high level of certainty, which apparently if the CIA says that, that's like basically going, it happened. They will never say it's 100%. It was a high level of certainty that Mohammed bin Salman ordered this murder. And Trump dismissed intelligence findings, as he has again. And here you have, you know, Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker and Mitch McConnell.

I mean, all of his, what's the word, supporters, you know, basically going, how can the president dismiss the CIA's findings in this crime? I mean, there was the audio, there were the transcripts, there was the surveillance footage, and then apparently there are tons of intercepted phone calls that U.S. intelligence has that Khashoggi's fiance, Hatice Cengiz, has just submitted to the incoming Biden administration to release these files on Khashoggi's murder that apparently were intercepted communications that show without a shadow of a doubt that Mohammed bin Salman ordered this murder. There's also a shocking part that when Turkey, after a year of working on this film, they give me the 37-page transcript to Khashoggi's murder.

And, I mean, it's stunning. I mean, the guys who murder him are literally making jokes and laughing ahead of killing him, talking about basically cutting him up like a horse, talking about how it'll be easy to cut up his body because, you know, you're just going to basically hang him and quarter him, You're just going to basically hang him and quarter him. And they're laughing about it. And in this 37-page transcript that I receive, it cuts out right after Khashoggi has been murdered. And they take off his clothes, basically strip him. basically, strip him. And they strip him because they're going to put his clothes on a body double who puts on a fake beard and walks out the back of the consulate. And the Turks found this,

you know, this in surveillance footage of this body double trying to pretend to be Khashoggi leaving the consulate. And the transcript then cuts out for about two hours and then picks back up, meaning the actual dismembering of Khashoggi I don't have in the transcript. And I asked my sources, why the transcript cut out? why, why the transcript cut out? And, uh, you know, what I've heard, and I certainly, you know, uh, wouldn't have any way to verify this is that the room that they killed him in, um, was the only room in the consulate where they could securely communicate with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In the film you'll see these footage and photos which to this day have still not been released to the world. The Turks gave me these footage and photos for the film which is staggering and you'll see this media room where there's

the camera set up basically to do a secure call and this was the only room in the consulate that was bugged but it was the only room in the consulate that had a secure video communication system with Riyadh. And what I was told is that after they murdered Khashoggi, they made a call back to Riyadh to arguably show MBS or Saad al-Qahtani that Khashoggi was in fact dead and dismembered. Um, and, uh, I guess Turkey has decided to, you know, save this piece or whatever, uh, of, of information, save it. Well, um, for whatever reason, they haven't wanted to come forward with this part of the transcript. And there's another thing that as they're removing these bags that contain Khashoggi's body, that they're then going to go bring over to the consul general's home.

And the Turks believe they burned his body in the tandoori oven. They ordered 70 pounds of meat from a very well-known restaurant right after he was murdered. And so the Turks believe that they burned his body in this tandoor oven, which they had checked that could burn at over a thousand degrees a couple days before the murder so that there'd be no DNA evidence and that you'd burn it with the meat and so it would smell like there was, you know, meat burning rather than a body, that there's a bag that apparently contained his hands. And Mutreb basically says, no, no, no no you leave that bag for me fingerprints

so it's believed that they brought back his hands uh and his head to saudi arabia Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah, there it is. U.S. considers granting immunity to Saudi prince in suspected assassination attempt. So this was an assassination attempt of another Saudi national who's living in the United States, and they had basically sent this whole kill team in through Canada to come kill this guy who was a dissenter living in the U.S.

But that case is pending right now, and so the Trump administration is looking to grant Mohammed bin Salman immunity from any sort of prosecution. What kind of weird backroom deals are they making? Well, here's one. If you pull up, there's a story on the New York Times. $500 million arms sale to Riyadh. Critics slam reported munitions deal in final weeks of donald trump's presidency as outrageous

and a moral outrage wow well here's a better one look up the new york times reported he's gonna move there today that's what's gonna happen yeah he's gonna move there he's gonna have a huge palace he's gonna take off he's gonna set up in riyadh they're gonna say that we're gonna prosecute him in america and he's gonna like no you're not yeah muhammad's always like no no no come over here come over here imagine if he did move there you imagine what a beautiful the most beautiful palace trump trump saudi arabia right here trump palace sets up a golf course i mean god you could see it but i could see it but here's here's another layer to this story which is even crazier there's more layers oh god so as you know saudi arabia um over the last uh i don't know how

long it's been going on two three years whatever's had a blockade on cutter right and cutter is you know this small very very rich country but it is landlocked. You know, it's the only way in and out of Qatar without traveling through Saudi Arabia is by sea. So Saudi Arabia basically tried to invade Qatar and take it over. The Turks basically saved Qatar by helping them, you know, with their military. And the Saudis and the Qataris have been, you know, basically hated each other for a long time. So Saudi Arabia creates this blockade that no plane or no car, truck, anything can travel over Saudi airspace or through Saudi land to go into Qatar. anything, can travel over Saudi airspace or through Saudi land to go into Qatar.

So, you know, creating some really serious economic damage to Qatar, right? So if you've read the story about the Kushner building on Park Avenue that apparently they owe hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on, and the Kushner family is, you know, like on the verge of, you know, whatever it is, if you read this bankruptcy over all these real estate debts. So there was a deal just brokered where Qatar bailed out the Kushner building on Park Avenue. And right after this bailout, it was announced that Saudi Arabia has lifted their embargo, their isolation of Qatar. That's how you say it? I always thought it was Qatar. I've been told Qatar, but Qatar. I don't know. Q-A-T-A-R. And so the back story of this is the bailout of a Kushner building by Qatar.

So they made a backroom deal. There you go. Saudi Arabia end feud with Qatar and Jared Kushner broker deal. January 4, 2021. During the same time they're brokering the arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the final weeks of the presidency. It's all so dark it's so dark and so when you say um you know did he think he could get away with it well there i mean

you know what is it like for you to put together a documentary like this? I mean, while you're going over all this information, while you're reading the transcripts and piecing together the crime, what is this like for you as a human being, just to realize that this is happening in the same era as what we're dealing with here in America? I mean, here we are in the United States, a completely different way of living, completely much freer access to communication.

Free speech is one of our core tenets. To see this and to go, I mean, how disturbing is this for you? How disturbing is this for you? Well, coming out of the experience of Icarus, and I tell this story because it leads to your question. As I began making Icarus, I was going through a really, really hard time in my life. Ten years previous, I had a play and a book and a movie that had done well, and I had paid my bills off this thing called Jewtopia, which was a play that ran for three and a half years off Broadway. It was about a Gentile who wanted to marry a Jewish girl so he'd never have to make another decision.

So my background was in comedy. I was acting. I was starring in this show that I wrote that I was producing. I performed in this show that I wrote, that I was producing. I performed in this show 2000 times. I mean, it was, I was going crazy. I'd basically become, you know, uh, I was the utopia guy. Um, and, and I was like pigeonholed into this because it was like a, be careful of what you wish for. Because it was like, be careful of what you wish for. Because all of a sudden I have this hit show.

I've got a book. And people just saw me as like, it was like Jason Alexander. It was like Costanza or Ross on Friends. They were never going to see me as something else. And during this time, I decided that I want to direct. I didn't want to act anymore. I didn't want to do comedy anymore, really. I wanted to direct and produce because I didn't want to go seek that self, that validation that you need as an actor, where you're auditioning and you're always seeking the validation from others. And this play, you know, having starring in it and producing it and co-wrote it. And, you know, I said, wait, I don't want to go back to needing validation from others.

I just want to be the guy who can make those decisions and pull those strings and create things and put myself in them or not. And so I really got started to focus just that I wanted to direct and produce. So I get to make, over the next four years, I cobbled together a million and a half dollars to go direct the film adaptation of Teutopia. And long story short, the money I took into it was just not friendly money. It was a real estate guy and he didn't understand the movie business. A 26-day shoot turned into a 19-day shoot. They didn't want to sell the film. Instead, they just wanted to release

it for rental with no marketing or advertising behind it. It got bad reviews. It was a flop. And I had put my savings into this movie as well. And so here I am in 2012, and I'm broke. And I literally don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I'm what I would call in director's jail. I no longer had my agency at the time. I was at CAA, so I lost my agency.

Nobody was sending me out for projects. The movie was looked at as a failure. And I'm basically in a midlife crisis. I'm literally renting out my apartment as an Airbnb to pay my bills. And I'm literally debating moving back to Denver in with my family until I can figure things out. And here I was, you know, a couple years earlier starring in a, you know, in a show. And so this depression leads me to start writing. I start on Icarus. And three years later, I'm standing on stage at the Academy Awards, winning an Oscar. A complete 180 of my life. I mean, a totally surreal moment. But with that

came this huge kind of burden, this like feeling that okay well I just basically helped save a man's life. I helped expose the biggest doping scandal in sport history. I was working with US intelligence agencies bringing a guy into protection and all of those really really serious stakes around Icarus. And then I'm given this incredible accolade, and I go, well, I can't go make my next movie a Disney movie. I can't go do something that's not going to have stakes. And so I'm trying to figure out what that next project is going to be.

Did you feel like that was forced upon you, or was that your instincts? Like, it was just how you felt about your future? Because Icarus was so rewarding, because it was so impactful, like, why did you decide that that had to be the case for the future? It felt that it would be disingenuous. it would be disingenuous. It felt that it wouldn't be operating with integrity to go through a journey that spoke truth to power,

that brought forward a story that I felt that the world needed and wanted to see, which clearly they did, and that Gregory Rechenkov is still living under the fear of his life every single day, in protection, in isolation, for basically bringing to me His truth and trusting me with His life and His truth. So to then go jump in and go do whatever you want to call it, didn't feel, it felt like I had been bestowed this gift, this privilege, and that I wanted to see to it that the next project that I did, that I would stay that course.

And in Jamal's murder, it ticked all these boxes for me. It was a story of human rights. It was a story of freedom of speech. It was a story of freedom of journalism, cyber hacking. But then there was this personal story. And this is where I get to your question. Right after Jamal is murdered, I, I, uh, in my mind, I go, Hey, this, this seems like this could be the next story. This could be the next film I make. But there were three variables to me as to whether or not I could take this story on, at least that I saw it.

Cause I didn't want to tell an archival film. I didn't want to go piece together a bunch of news footage and, you know, here's, here's my documentary. I wanted to do like what I did in Icarus where I'm embedding, where I really, really go deep into it, where I craft a story and a film that the world doesn't know. And if they think they know about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and they watch The Dissident, they realize they don't. And for me to do that, it depended on three things. One, Hatice Jenga is Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee. Whether or not she would participate with me and whether or not she would work with me exclusively to tell her story

and that story of their love together, because that to me was going to be the emotional connection of the film that was the human connection a woman who was in love with this man who believed that she was going to marry this man who walks into a consulate to go get marriage papers to, to marry this woman, to never return. I mean, just unfathomable. And so would Hitesha work with me? The second was Omar Abdulaziz. Here's this story emerging in the New York Times in the days following Khashoggi's murder of this young Saudi dissident who's claiming, who's saying that his brothers are sitting in a Saudi prison with no charges, 23 of his friends are sitting in a Saudi jail with no charges, that he had been hacked with Pegasus, that the Saudis had come to rendition and kill him in

Canada months before. And I saw in Omar the protagonist, the young Khashoggi, the voice of, you know, who's still alive, fighting for his life under security of Canada. Would Omar work with me and allow me his evidence and his audio and tell his story? Because through Omar, again, we come to understand what's really going on in Saudi Arabia, but also come to love Jamal. And the third element was the Turks, the Turkish. Would they provide me information, evidence, transcripts, interviews that was not on CNN, was not on BBC, that they had not given to anybody else other than intelligence agencies? So as I set out on this journey, I get connected to Hatice and I go to Istanbul a month after Jamal's murder. And I didn't bring a cameraman.

I'm sorry, I didn't bring a camera. I traveled there with Jake Swanko, my cinematographer, who also produced the film with me. And Hatice was just willing to meet with me. She didn't even speak English at the time, and we had a translator. And I spent five weeks there meeting with her every other day as she was going through the worst unimaginable grief, telling her, Hatija, look, let me help you. Let me tell this story. Trust me. I promise you I'll protect you. I promise you, I promise you that I will protect Jamal. And I left Istanbul after five weeks, and she was still deciding. And I then went to Montreal and with Omar it was the same thing but Omar

allowed me to start filming but every time after we film with Omar we would leave him all of the camera cards because Omar wasn't ready to participate either he was just he was in total shock he had you know i mean uh and um and this was this trust building with these people and then hatija basically says hey i'm ready and i go and meet her in brussels as she goes to speak in front of the European Parliament, first time basically leaving her country other than going to Oman. She had never been in Western Europe. And that scene where Hatice is introduced in the film was the very first time that I was able to film with her and she trusted me. And this began this, what's now been this two-year,

And this began this, what's now been this two-year, incredibly personal, emotional journey. Because you're with these people as they're going through this horrific loss, as they're fighting for justice. I mean, I was with Omar in Canada as he's learning that his brothers, one of his brothers had been tortured and had his teeth knocked out 19 year old brother for doing nothing other than knowing Omar I'm shooting with Omar in Canada as he's receiving death threats on his phone in Arabic coming from Canadian phone numbers. I'm with Hatija as we walk into what was going to be her and Jamal's home in Istanbul and we open the door and it's a crime scene and there's black dust everywhere because they had taken the whole place for fingerprints and she's in this place that she thought she was going to spend her life with Jamal, going, where's Jamal's stuff? What happened here? And this has taken such a huge emotional toll

on me, because you really come to love these people. And on the other hand, like, I'm so grateful. Like, had Icarus not happened, I wouldn't be able to go tell these stories. These people wouldn't have trusted me. Do you think you'd even be compelled to tell a story like this if Icarus had not happened no way it was there's i get asked this question all the time like are you scared of your life you know you're taking on putin you're taking on mbs you're

you're fighting these forces and and in this film, here we go to Sundance. Hillary Clinton's at my premiere. Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, is at my premiere. Audiences are on their feet applauding. Hatija, his fiancée, is there. Agnes Calamard, the UN special repertoire that investigated his murders, is there. Standing ovations, tears going down people's eyes, and not a single major global streamer steps up to acquire the film. We arguably had the best

reviews of any film out of Sundance. We were on all of the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, AP, their top 10 films of all of Sundance, top, top films of 2020 lists, et cetera, uh, the most incredible accolades. And we were not offered a single dollar for this film. And, you know, and I'm going in there basically at this point as, as, as an Oscar winner. an Oscar winner. And so, you know, to go through that experience and go, wait, am I the only one that wants to speak truth to power? What happens when I go and spend two years of my life fighting for something like this and the only way that people can go see it is to go rent it on VOD because all of these media companies are in business with the Saudis, are taking money from the Saudis, have stock owned by the Saudis,

and are too scared or have too many ties to actually want to speak any sort of truth to power or even allow their subscribers to see this content. And here with Icarus, you know, with the every single time I turn on my Netflix, still Icarus is at the top of my feed three years later with what I've been told 700 million views. So I know that people want to see this film. I know people want to learn about this. And we craft it as a thriller. I mean, it's not crafted as a doc, it's crafted like The Bourne Identity. But we are, you know, but instead, you know, people are going to have to find the film instead of being able to go into their subscription services and

have it just live there for people to discover and find did you discuss it with netflix did you have personal communication or do you representatives talk to them like how do you do that well uh we have a sales agent you go into sundance and ahead of Sundance you would have thought that there would have been a lot of requests knowing that this film was coming into Sundance for these you know major buyers to get an advanced look at the film there were none and then we go on to Sundance the heads of most of these companies were actually there, not just their buyers, like the bosses. And one after the other after the other passed with no explanation, just, sorry, we can't take this. This is too dangerous for us. This is too scary for us.

This is too much of a security risk for us. They told you these things? Told my sales agent. Too much of a security risk. Yeah. Or they just would say, you know, sorry, our slate is full for the year, right? You know, and what I got to see was that we are living right now in a world where big business and money and investment take place over human rights, over freedom of speech, over freedom of journalism, over freedom of press. freedom of press and it's okay that omar's brothers sit in a saudi jail tortured 23 of his friends sit in jail thousands and thousands and thousands of people are arrested or hundreds are

beheaded simply for for speaking uh uh publicly um not in support of their government. That's why they were beheaded? Yes. So they were beheaded for speaking out against the government? Yes. And this is okay as long as you can grow your subscribers, as long as you can do business with them. And this isn't just Netflix. This is all of them.

Amazon just acquired Souq, which is the Saudi Arabia of Amazon. So even in the film, you see Jeff Bezos is hacked by the Saudis with the same Pegasus software yeah Jamal Khashoggi is his fiance because he Jamal Khashoggi is his employee because he owns the Washington Post and yet they don't acquire the film to distribute it. Well, arguably, this is about shareholder value. This is about growth in the region. This is about continued business interest. But they do have it available on Amazon Prime to rent and to buy. To rent.

But it's very different than having it as an original, right? When something is, let's say, an Amazon original, a Netflix original, an HBO original, a Disney original, a Hulu original, right? When something is, let's say, an Amazon original, a Netflix original, an HBO original, a Disney original, a Hulu original, right? That streamer, that platform is taking ownership of that content, labeling it with that original, and also doing the marketing and the support and the awards campaign behind it. And then that content will live on that platform and they'll market and support that content. So far beyond our rental that's set up, which is very different, meaning if you're just putting something up there to rent, not only is there no risk for the company, right? Another company is

doing that to put that up there. And it's not being labeled as an original. So it's not like a, wow, why did you do this? But as of right now, we don't have a secondary output window, meaning after our video on demand window is kind of over. Right now we don't have a secondary output deal with a Netflix or an Amazon or an HBO. And do you know anyone at Netflix? Like, do you know any of the executives? Like,

could you have a conversation with them about this? I know a ton of them. And did you reach out? Look, I, uh, I love Netflix Netflix I do too and I'm grateful to Netflix because without Netflix there Icarus wouldn't have been had that success and that film changed my life without Netflix's support it wouldn't have won the Academy Award.

I have a lot of friends at Netflix, and I'm grateful to them. But Netflix is not the same company that it was a couple years ago. When Icarus was acquired, there was 100 million subscribers. There's now 200 million subscribers. When Icarus was acquired, they had never won an Academy Award for a feature. Icarus was their first feature Academy Award win in 2018. And now everybody is willing to do films for them, whether that's Alfonso Cuaron or David Fincher or Martin Scorsese, plus all the biggest actors and stars in the world. Meaning

not only are they a different company, it's everybody is doing business with them. And the awards season this year, probably 40, 50% of those top films, you know, will be Netflix films. And that's amazing that, you know, that they are getting behind content like that. And also that, you know, everybody from George Clooney to Alfonso Cuaron, right? I mean, you name it. There's no disparity anymore, other than maybe a handful of filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Spielberg that have said, hey, they're not going to, you know, do Netflix films. They want to, you know, you know, do Netflix films. They want to, you know, preserve theaters that won't work with Netflix. But that growth and their need to expand internationally because they're topped out in the United States, I think has changed the company as to the risks they're willing to take as to content.

And that's unfortunate. This isn't so shocking to me. Months before Sundance, they removed an episode of Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act. Hassan had done an episode making fun of Mohammed bin Salman and focused on the Khashoggi murder. And the kingdom basically asked Netflix to remove it from their platform. And they took it off the air in Saudi Arabia. And then they defended the decision by saying, we're not a truth to power company. We're in the entertainment business. They literally said that? That was their statement? That was Reed Hastings' statement. You can Google it. You can look it up. You can look it up online. And, you know, and he has supported that statement on many occasions. And apparently the back story behind that is that they were able to negotiate to have other content that wouldn't have been allowed in Saudi Arabia streaming on Netflix in exchange for taking off that episode.

But the bottom line of it is that there was a decision made that, hey, we want to grow in the kingdom. We've got, you know, Saudi Arabia investment. God knows what percentage of Netflix stock they own, et cetera, right? And we're going to remove this episode. Mohammed bin Salman doesn't want it on the air. So, I mean, if you look at that, the handwriting was on the wall that they were arguably not going to take The Dissident, regardless of the fact that I had done Icarus for them, and regardless of, you know, the accolades and what the film is, and, you know,

arguably that, you know, hundreds of millions of people on their platform would want to watch it. But this wasn't just them. It was all of them. And I think it speaks to this greater issue that we have to start thinking about, which is if all these media conglomerates, and there isn't that many, you know, HBO is owned by Time and Warner Media, and, I mean, it's, you know, it's like kind of what's happened with the airline industry now. There's only, you know, there's only a few big players,

and there's not that many options. That, you know, this is seeming to be an increasingly difficult time for filmmakers, for storytellers like myself that want to make content like this because they want to tell stories like this that they believe that humanity should see and know um and not have a global distribution outlet for that um and you know i don't know what the solution is but i'm certainly not angry at anyone i'm just i'm just disappointed it's got to be a very bizarre place to be in because does this flavor or does this have any impact on your next choice like what you do for your next film well that's that's a great question

and uh i've uh i've really been thinking about that i I mean, I have two projects that I'm working on I don't want to disclose. One is very much of the ilk of Icarus and the Dissonant. The other is more commercial-driven. And then I have a scripted series that I'm working on that is of the kind of Icarus, Russia kind of stuff. And that we do have a partner on. We haven't announced it yet, but it's scripted. So, look, I want to continue to, when a story comes that I go, somebody needs to do this, or this has got the makings of a

thriller. And, and I think I can, and me and my creative team can craft something really powerful. Um, I don't think I'm going to be swayed by it. Um, but I think I'm, I'm going to go into it with a different perspective, knowing that probably the distribution challenges are going to be there from the outset and might try to do things from the outset to try to limit that or figure out how we're going to position it. So this was, it's safe to say this was shocking to you, to not get picked up. Shocking is an understatement.

I mean, to, you know, when you, and I don't ever want to toot my own horn, you know, but when you look at what this story is, I mean, I made this film for Hatice Cengiz, his fiance. I made the film for Omar Abdulaziz. I made the film for wanting, because I saw with Icarus the power that film can have. I mean, when Icarus came out in August 2017, despite the story already being public, Russia was still going to the Olympics. Five months later, the IOC, on their reasoned decision, basically cites Icarus as one of their reasons for banning Russia from the Games.

Do you think without that, Russia still would be in the Olympics? I believe so, yes. That's got to be a crazy feeling. Because look at what film does. Let's take The Cove, for example, right? About dolphin slaughter in Japan. That film completely changed that industry in Japan

because you're watching dolphins get rounded up and murdered. Look at Blackfish and what that did for SeaWorld, right? You know, and there are so many films that you can draw these parallels to that have the power to actually change

politics, have the power to change the course of history. And that was what was so incredible about Icarus. And that's what also gave me that feeling of a burden to go, you know, take on a story like the Khashoggi murder, because I saw how it could impact change and how it could actually change a narrative. And I mean, everywhere I go, they might not recognize me. But then if I say, hey, what are you doing? I go, oh, yeah, did you see Icarus? I mean, everywhere I go in the world, they all saw it. Like, I can't even find people that haven't seen it at this point. I mean it

feels like the whole planet watched it and that is the extraordinary power of Netflix. That when they put out a film it releases into like 197 countries across like 50 languages all at the same time. The entire world has access to it. And the entire world should have access to this film. But they're not going to have access to this film because there are business interests at stake. There are investment interests at stake. And that is really disappointing. That is really disappointing. And so I'm shocked that I believe with great wealth and with great power comes great responsibility. These business titans that have these huge companies lose their moral compass, lose their direction to basically say, okay, this might not be the very best thing for our business or our subscriber growth,

but God damn it, people should see this. Wow, we got to do something about it. Wow, there are people losing their lives and sitting in jails, and maybe our distributing this film can change that. Maybe our letting our hundreds of millions of subscribers see this can actually bring about positive change for humanity. And they don't do that? That's really, it's soul crushing. That's really, it's soul crushing. I got a message, and I hope Hatija is not going to be mad at me.

She, his fiance sent me a message to two days ago. And she said, Hi, dear Brian. I've read all the reviews of the film, and I'm very encouraged. They seem to like the film, and they have a really good idea about it. The main three points they mentioned is that you're brave, that Omar struggles, and my position is fighting for human rights. I'm glad. I'm proud of you every day. You made history. You did an incredible job, believe me. All is well now.

I'm getting better every day. This trauma has created a new Hatija, I think. I understand that every day. I'm not the same person two years as I was two years before. I got a lot and I learned a lot and I made some good friends. The most important one is you and your team, Thor, that's Thor Halverson, the president of the Human Rights Foundation who financed the film, and Jake Swanko, he is my cinematographer. My life changed and my opinion also changed and my daily life also changed. The one thing that did not change is my love and my heart. It's still full of love for humanity and Jamal's soul. I believe that if we change life, it will be with love and with love for our values.

and with love for our values. And that's extraordinary to me to see that his fiance two years on has such that incredible positive outlook on in the world. And I'm so honored to receive that message and at the same time, you know, I know that for the world to actually learn of her story and her fight for Jamal's life and for justice is going to be a struggle because of the, whatever you want to call it, business interests of these major platforms that come ahead of seeking any sort of accountability for human rights abuses. And the potential to make the world a better place. And the potential to make the world a better place, but it might not align with their goals for subscriber growth in that region of the world. Or it might not coincide with possible future investments or investments or shareholder value. And that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate if the richest man on planet Earth, now the second, I guess, Jeff Bezos, is more concerned with his bottom line than he is concerned about seeking justice and accountability for a man who worked for him, who was murdered while working for his newspaper, and that he and his company could have stepped forward to see to it that the world truly had access to this.

You know, Brian, it's really crazy hearing your story and thinking that just eight years ago, hearing your story and thinking that just eight years ago you were doing this play and your your life has fallen apart and you know telling the story that's you've created this documentary in icarus and then just by circumstance while you're making this documentary this scandal unfolds changes everything the document comes the documentary comes out it's a masterpiece literally changes the way the entire sporting world looks at russia and drug doping and now this i mean your life is taking a taken a really bizarre turn and you've you've been very courageous you know what you've done is you you looked in the mirror and you did the right thing no thanks I really I really appreciate that and he did a bold thing I I wouldn't change it.

Because when you get to work with these people, as hard as it may be, like, I think of Hatice as like my sister now. And when I get messages like that, or when I get to talk to Gregory, and he thanks me for saving his life, you know, I go, okay, well, I should keepically, but, uh, you know, I, I just, uh, I've had so many ups and downs in my life and so many financial kind of struggles and and thinking you know here you know here i was you know

facing 40 years old a few years ago going what i'm gonna go move back to colorado with my parents that that if i have been kind of bestowed these gifts and, uh, and people who are willing to finance and back these projects for me to go do. And, and me and my team can go and, and make this content and do this content and, and follow these stories, then, you know, then, then why not? You know, we were just on this planet for such a short time. I mean, every year that ticks by, I can't believe it. I mean, and so, you know, we know that we've got this really limited time and that we're all just ants on the planet.

Like, I'm so aware of that. And like when I go to New York, I always get depressed because I realize how much I am an ant on the planet and it doesn't matter how famous you may be when you're gone you're gone and the newspapers might write about you for a couple days and you know and you're David Bowie, or you're Michael Jackson, or whoever you are, and when you pass, you pass on, and we don't know where we're going. I certainly don't know where I'm going, so I go, well, at least this time that I have on

this planet, if I've been given this gift, I might as well keep trying to use it. Well, you most certainly have made an impact. And I appreciate you. And anytime you got something going on that you want to promote, I am here for you. 100%. You're a good man. You know, I listen to you all the time.

And yeah, you are the, uh, the powerful Joe Rogan, you know, it's a, but it, but it's a testament to, to the work that you're doing too, Joe, because, um, you know, your story is equally incredible from, you know, incredible from, you know, from, from fear factor and being able to do comedy and get up on a stage and make people laugh and then have this show where you're able to bring in people from all sorts of walks of life, all sorts of careers and talk to them and have built this huge audience because you've opened up that platform for people to get information. You know, kudos, man. It's a good thing that you're doing.

And I listen to you religiously. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I don't know what the fuck happened. I'm a fan happened i have no idea how this happened my story is much more convoluted than yours it's very bizarre but uh um but thanks man thank you thank you very much and everybody go check out the documentary it's really excellent the dissident it's available uh like you saw it's available you can get it on itunes you get on

amazon it's worth the money it's very good yeah and Yeah, and if you go online, thedissident.com, there's trailers, you can read about it, and you can find out how to watch it. And give everybody out your social media as well, so they can... My Twitter is atbrianfogle, my

Instagram handle is atbrianfogle, and the site is thedissident.com and you can rent it or buy it today. I promise you

you'll be shocked and horrified. It's very heavy. I think you'll also love the film. It was crafted kind of as a born-identity thriller, and hopefully will keep you glued to your seat. And at the end of it, it'll make you want to get involved with the Human Rights Foundation or other human rights organizations around the world

to try to continue fighting for justice for Jamal and accountability for this horrendous murder. Thank you, everybody. Goodbye.