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Jan. 17, 2026 - Rudy Giuliani
01:16:05
America's Mayor Live (845): Tensions Remain High as Iran Regime Continues to Crack Down on Dissent

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And this is America's Mayor Live from Palm Beach, Florida.
However, once again, our focus is on Tehran, the Islamic Republic of Tehran, the regime of change.
And by the end of this show, I am going to convince you that whatever delay there may be, they are going to be consigned, as I believe my great boss and one of the greatest presidents of the United States would say about the Soviets, to the ash heap of history, which should be deep down in hell for the number of people they have killed, including their own.
We were talking in the last show, if you do watch it, I don't know how many of you switch over from one to the other.
So I try to make sure that the important things that you need to know are also contained in this show.
So it's a self-contained show.
But and this is important.
The whole Denmark thing, which, by the way, is not popular among Americans.
In other words, the American people do not necessarily support Trump in his desire to take over Greenland.
And I think they do that.
That's because the way it's covered, it's almost covered like it's an exercise of ego on the part of Trump.
Do you know America has been after that place since we took Alaska with Seward's folly?
Now, that great Secretary of State, who comes from Auburn, New York, whose home I have actually gotten to see, he wanted to take Greenland when he took Alaska.
And it was almost available.
We just didn't want to put up, we just didn't want to put up the money for it.
Well, in any event, it has for years, even before the Soviet issue and the Chinese issue and the nuclear war issue and the air war issue.
It's always been a place that we have felt was of critical importance for our defense, along with Alaska, because I describe it as massive goalposts over the Arctic Circle.
I mean, you just can't come over that damn place headed for us, and we don't pick you up one way or the other, sweetheart.
And if you come up over the middle too much, you're coming up over enormously well-protected territory north of Canada and even in Canada, where although we do fight over everything else, we do not fight over nuclear defense.
In fact, the first people to volunteer to join the Golden Dome Project were the Canadians who hate Trump, but they love him for that.
When people's lives are at risk, they know how to make distinctions, right?
Okay.
So Greenland is important for our national defense.
It is a travesty and it is a condition of our age that our predominant media does not present it to you that way.
They presented it to you as a folly project of Donald Trump almost as stupidly as Seward's folly back in the mid 19th century.
Now, I want you to look for a second, Ted, if you can.
I want you to look at the Denmark has upped its protection.
That is going to protect that four engine prop plane is going to protect us from the Soviets or the Russians or whatever the hell you want to call them or the Chinese coming over the circle.
They're going to go up there and take down one of those hypersonic missiles.
What do you think the chances are?
This is the shit they have protecting it.
So I am trying to make the point to you.
I don't think I have to because you trust Trump and you trust me by and hard, you know, but we try to have you not have to trust me.
What I try to do, I don't know.
I hope I do it in a principled way.
I try.
If I don't, it's just psychological.
I try to point out, I try to think of all the arguments against and I try to show you the answer to it.
I don't want you to believe something where I've, I want you to believe something because you understand it and you agree with it and you're going to further it.
You may be smarter than I am.
I'm going to show you another thing.
It's quite beautiful, actually.
I mean, I'd love to, I may take this photo and make it into a painting and put it on a wall, Ted.
Look at this.
And that's beautiful.
And here's an argument, although people generally go to Iceland rather than Greenland for vacations and for just this is, I would go there.
Wouldn't you love to go in that church in that place there?
And one of those is probably a really good restaurant with seafood.
Now that's going to hold off the Soviet hypersonic planes and missiles.
And that was just put there.
Someone should tell them.
Maybe they do the United States.
That's one of our Coast Guard things there.
This is what we use to intercept refugees.
Notice this thing up here.
Is that interesting?
I wonder if that's a, it looks like I'm going to go with the saint, but Denmark is not into saints.
They're Protestant.
They are, I think this is.
That is definitely.
That's probably some kind of explorer or something.
You know, these guys, these guys explored America because they were the Vikings and they came there before Columbus.
But unlike Italians, they weren't that smart.
They didn't have to record it.
See, Italians were always like smart, shrewder than these guys.
Also, there's another reason they're shrewder.
They don't kill themselves anywhere near as much and they like life.
Italians have figured out how to like life.
These guys are like blowing themselves away every day.
It could be the climate.
It could be the climate.
Well, then you know what happens if you got a brain?
You move out.
But if you don't have a brain, you stay there and you kill yourself.
Or you let America come in and make it a nice place.
Oh, and here are the soldiers we're going to depend on these.
This is it.
This is the entire Danish brigade.
There it is.
That's the entire Danish brigade unarmed because they don't like arms to defend us against a Soviet or Chinese attack.
This might have trouble defending us from an Iran attack, even a Hamas attack.
So now you understand why Trump is so definitely and completely committed to getting this done.
And there are some very good points made.
And I do not know the president's thinking on this contemporaneous now.
I haven't talked to him about it in maybe five years.
This is something he wanted to do in his first term.
And I didn't know about it then.
And it made sense to me then.
And it was not an ego project.
It was a very, very well thought out ability to make sure that we had ourselves defended properly.
And if he's going to do a golden dome for us, and he's going to extend that golden dome to protect Europe and elsewhere, this is going to be necessary.
I would think maybe one, I would think, but I could be wrong.
This may be enough.
I would think one more of these over toward Finland might work.
And with the Finnish having turned now on the Russians big time over Ukraine, you might be able to, I know there were times we were trying to get that from them and Finland remained neutral, but Finland can be a great protection for us against the Russians.
And we should talk to Finland and Sweden, who as a result of Putin's attacking Ukraine joined NATO, which we have to put, if you want to make a, what did Putin gain so far from attacking Ukraine?
What did he lose from attacking Ukraine?
And what, what, there's no way to, there's no way to do this like plus, minus.
But what do you, we'll do this sometime.
What do you think?
Was it a plus or a minus for him?
Even if he comes out ahead with the prop with the territory, let's give him all the territory he's asking for.
I'm not going to give him, no, no, let's give him all the territory he conquered.
Let's not give him the territory he's asking for.
Keep that away from him.
And then see, is it a plus or a minus?
Should he have done it?
Shouldn't he have done it?
It would be an interesting, interesting question.
Interesting if we do it because there are no history classes anymore anywhere.
And those of you who are interested in history, you could come and listen to us.
It would be like listening to a history lecture at once.
I don't know how long Harvard hasn't been teaching history, but maybe at Manhattan College, my college, they had history, really good history.
Wow.
I had terrific professors, Professor Hazelton.
They were terrific.
I remember my ancient history like it was yesterday.
President Trump has made a real attempt and is in the process.
This is a work in progress, the whole Trump health program.
But boy, does he have great people?
Does he have great people working on it?
I mean, he really does have great people working on it.
He's got, I mean, I don't even know how to describe it.
I mean, he has when he has these, when he has these sessions, when he has these sessions In the Oval Office, I'm so impressed with it, with the quality of science there in comparison, in comparison to what we, in comparison to what we used to have.
You know, it's really, it's really quite, it's really quite amazing.
It really is.
So this is a complicated program, and a lot of it would be speculation at this point.
Let me give you the sure points of it, okay?
Americans are going to be allowed to purchase their own health care.
Now, you've got to understand concepts of capitalism and why it is ingenious and wonderful and moral.
And the capitalism is as sacrosanct as democracy or Republican form of government democracy, because it allows the economy to turn, the economy to grow or contract based on the choices of the individual.
It is the economic side of freedom.
Democracy and Republican government and government of laws is the political side of it.
It comes out of the same thinking.
It comes out of the same philosophy, starting with the Greeks, going through the Bible, handed down and enhanced by the Romans, put into a long pressure cooker during the Middle Ages and then emerging in tremendous form during the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation.
I mean, no other culture has had what I just described to you.
So when people get all kind of stereotyed about some of these other cultures, they're great.
You should learn about them.
But they're one quarter of us and what we've contributed.
So this will rely heavily on private decisions.
And therefore, it will do what I really would like to do with education, which is turn the money over to the people to decide on the education for their children.
I think you do that.
American education goes back to where it was in five years.
Try to do that with the Communist Teachers Union trying to stop you and the fact that they completely own ideologically and financially the party of slavery, the Democrat Party.
So this is not the whole thing that he's at.
This is a big first step in turning over money for people to buy their own, even people who are on Obamacare to buy their way out of it and buy their own programs and insurance companies to start to get competitive.
And I'm going to try a simple explanation of this, and it goes back to before Obamacare.
A lot of this, a lot of this has to do with employer health care also and how that deteriorated choices in healthcare.
I don't know what the percentage right now in America is of people who have employer healthcare.
Must have been over 50% at one time.
Wow.
Yeah.
It had to be over 50%.
What that meant was you became immune.
You became ignorant about the competition in healthcare because your employer made the decisions and it meant at first rather modest contributions from you.
Then you became really dependent on it.
It was really easy to have.
And then it started to up the contributions.
It became real expensive.
And like any monopoly that begins cheap, it ended up being catastrophically expensive.
But you were locked into it because you didn't know anything about your healthcare insurance or how to negotiate for it.
You knew a lot about your car insurance because car insurance wasn't done that way.
Car insurance, you called up your broker and he said, you'll get X amount of insurance for Y amount and this is what it will cover.
And most people would make rational choices about how much coverage they want, to some extent about life insurance.
But on health insurance, we turned our decision making over to large, large industrial, commercial enterprises that tend to, when they're dealing with that much money and that much power, what happens with absolute power?
What does it corrupt?
Oh, what do you think large sums of money do?
They corrupt.
And when you're the guy in charge, you take everything for yourself.
So what Trump is trying to do is to introduce the unbelievable, nothing that can compare to it.
Discipline of a market, a free and fair market to reducing the price of health insurance.
It's going to be hard to do that because there are so many vested interest owning monopolies here.
But the idea that we're moving in that direction, first of all, is going to create modest improvements right away, just this year, 10, 20% reductions in the cost for some forms of Obamacare.
You do this grand style.
You're going to see the cost cut more than half.
Just the way his program for drugs is ingenious.
The whole question is how to get the companies to include more and more of their drugs in Favored Nation.
What is Favored Nation has never is not used often in the consumer area.
It's used often in the large corporate purchase.
So if I purchase for a company and I'm purchasing 1 million computers, do you think I pay a lot less than you who buys one computer?
Well, of course I should.
On sheer volume, they're going to make a fortune off me.
They can easily reduce the price.
Easily.
Volume purchase is the reason why products that are put on the market that we just love and desire, when they become enormously popular, become cheaper.
Big television this size comes on the market, 12 grand.
More people buy it.
Eight grand.
More people buy it.
Five grand.
It gets bigger.
More people buy it.
Two grand.
Do the arithmetic.
You know, I know a lot of people can't do it without one of the one of these things here.
Just do the arithmetic on paper.
You can still do it.
People who watch me can still do it.
And take a look at what happens if you make 50% on 100 purchases or you make 5% on 5 million purchases.
Who becomes the billionaire?
The guy with the 5% on the 5 billion.
This is why charging the most is not necessarily the way to make the most money.
It's trying to figure out optimum price.
It's trying to figure out the price at which, given the value of the product, the necessity for the product, the enjoyment value of the product.
What's the best number you can sell it at?
Well, you'll sell the most.
And then as a result of that, how can you reduce the price?
Because you'll find that as you reduce the price, you sell even more.
And you may make less per item, but less per one item is nothing compared.
I mean, more per one item is nothing compared to less per 10,000 items.
These are the concepts we don't teach to young people anymore because we don't teach them the genius of the most important system for economics ever developed by man called capitalism.
As important as democracy, critical to democracy.
A democracy without capitalism becomes socialism and communism.
And communism becomes socialism.
They become each other.
And that's why this idea that there's no difference between communists and socialists ultimately is absolutely true.
Let them function long enough and they come together and let them function often enough and you have violence.
So we're going to take a break, which I don't think we've done.
And we are going to...
Come back with a very special...
Who can have?
Well, we have a great doctor.
On Ukraine.
On Iran.
On Iran.
Oh.
Right.
Yes, of course.
Yes.
See, he surprises me.
I'm going to have to catch up now.
I'll do your part here, and we'll be right back.
Okay.
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And we are back.
Welcome back to America's Mayor Live.
We have with us now Dr. Saeed Sajadi, who is a medical doctor in Kansas City, but his brother is in Camp Ashraf 3, where he's been a part of the very, very effective, and we see the results of it now, resistance to the reign of terror for decades.
And Doctor, did I have the honor of meeting your brother when I was there?
Hello, Mayor Giuliani.
It's good to be here with you on your show.
And thank you for inviting me.
And thank you.
And thank you so much for coming on.
Yes.
And yes, my brother used to be at Camp Ashraf in Iraq for a number of years and then later on was transferred to Albania and Europe.
And I imagine you have met him because as you know, there are close to 3,000 members of resistance are in Albania currently.
Well, they are very remarkable people and they are people who are at a moment's notice ready to handle a transition government that would seamlessly or as close to seamlessly as possible allow Iran to transition to what it wanted to be,
oh gosh, way back during the first revolution, a democracy, a republican form of democracy with equal rights for women.
So tell us about the struggle, the struggle here.
First, because all of a sudden, out of the blue, you've been working on this forever.
I've been working on it for 15 years.
Out of the blue, this guy appears, the Shah's son.
And I've been working on this.
I've never seen him show up at anything.
We've been at very, very interesting conferences.
We've been in very dangerous situations.
We've been negotiating under high tension with a lot of pressure on us.
We negotiated with the UN.
We negotiated with the Clinton administration.
were threatened with death he was never i did it with a group of eight or ten americans and other people i never saw her I never saw this character there.
Now he wants to be the king.
Yes.
How ridiculous is this?
How much could this interfere with the effort?
You know, he's an opportunist.
But the thing is that the Iranian regime actually takes advantage of this character to basically suggest that the future of Iran is a dictatorship, one or the other.
So in a way, it serves the regime to prolong the life of this regime.
He's an opportunist.
To me, he's okay with this regime to prolong or for him to become the next dictator.
I do not think he would be for a free and democratic Iran.
And let me tell you, Mayor, why I think that he has no interest in that.
As you know, his family, Shah, stole billions of dollars from Iran.
And it's reported, there is an article, Washington Post, 1979, and puts the estimate roughly several billion dollars up to $23 billion.
A free and democratic government in Iran, I will tell you, Mayor, would go after this money.
So he has no interest, Reza Pahabi, in a free and democratic Iran.
He has no interest.
He obviously wants to become a dictator.
If not, he's okay for this regime to go on as it is, but no free Iran.
Because it would require a real investigation into how much money he and his family stole.
And it's a substantial amount of money.
And they've been, you know, it's hard to understand, but if you realize they've been living off it for 47 years as if they were jet royalty, that's all coming out of the mouths of starving Iranians.
Yes.
And to continue with what you were saying, Riza Pahlavi benefits the regime, but also benefits, perhaps, certain policies which want to put pressure on the resistance.
Our resistance represents the Iranian people.
The movement of Iranian people started mayor 120 years ago, 1906 constitutional revolution.
And that was when the monarchy, which was an absolute monarchy, became a reformed or constitutional monarchy.
And the slogan since then for the Iranian movement being freedom and independence.
As you know, back then, the Iranian government was very much influenced by foreign powers at the time, Russia and Britain.
And that's why the slogan of independence was a main slogan back then, but also freedom.
And so freedom is a slogan and the current revolution in Iran is to achieve that freedom.
And Iranian resistance, I was telling you as far as the independence, is an independent resistance.
And it represents that slogan, which been there for 120 years.
And so that explains the movement that currently going in Iran.
And what I want to say is that the fact that Riza Pah Al Avi is supported by some elements, foreign elements, is perhaps partly also to put pressure on this resistance.
So as you see, the benefits of Mullah's regime, which they want to portray Reza Pah Al Avi as an option, as a dictator, and also certain elements, foreign elements who want to put pressure on resistance coincide.
So there's a common interest here.
And that's why Reza Pah Al Avi, you hear a lot about him, because there is this common interest of the Iranian regime and certain elements on foreign side.
Isn't he particularly rejected by the minorities, by the, I mean, people don't realize, but it's a little bit like the United States.
Iran is Persian.
We think of it as Persian, but 30 to 40% of Iran is made up of what we call ethnic minorities that some of whom are very powerful, the Azeris, the Balushis, the Kurds.
And he kind of tortured them.
Yes.
You know, the dictatorship, the past two dictatorships, they've been dictatorial toward everyone in the country, farce or Persian or ethnic minorities.
But obviously, the ethnic minorities, the repression being more than the Persian people, but nevertheless, you know, the whole country under Pahlavi or Mullahs, there wasn't any political freedom.
Under Pahlavi, I believe it was 1975, when Shah announced one party.
Prior to that, there were multiple parties, and Shah set up a party of his own called Rasaqis and asked everyone to join the party.
And if they do not want, they could leave the country.
So that was his suggestion at the time.
So as far as freedom, as far as repression, the whole country under Pahlavi or Mullahs, if it's ethnic minorities or Persian, it doesn't matter.
But obviously the ethnic minorities were repressed more.
So what is the level of support now among the protesters and those who would join the protesters?
As between Pahlavi and the MEK?
Yes.
So MEK's priority is not to be recognized as a leader.
They want the revolution to proceed.
So their strategy is revolution, is to overthrow the regime.
So that's all they care about.
And so they set up the resistance units inside Iran.
They provide with instructions, logistics, and basically to have a setup to support the uprisings.
So really at this point, that's their priority.
Now, that's why you don't necessarily hear in demonstrations someone to say, you know, hail to Maryam Rajavi, because that doesn't help.
What helps is for the strategy to advance against the mullahs regime.
Now, Razab Alevi, because he doesn't have any organization on the ground, he just want to sell himself as the leader.
And that's why his only objective is to be recognized as a leader.
And the Iranian regime also recognized that.
So many of the clips that coming from Iran, it's been known that Iranian regime puts voice over the clips to suggest that people are asking for return of monarchy.
So what I'm saying is that the MEK and Rajab Alavi, they have two different strategies and two ways of looking at the situation.
MEK wants the strategy to advance.
Rizab Alavi just wants his name to be said one way or another.
Do you think he wants to be the Shah again, the emperor, the king, the dictatorial ruler?
Yes.
You know, in 1980, I think when he became 21, if I'm correct, or 18 or 21, he declared himself as the king.
And he has never denounced or he has never voiced that I'm not going to pursue that route.
So, and also in many of his interviews, he has said he's not interested in just a king without power.
And in the plan that he has, his group and his affiliates has put out, actually he is the supreme leader through the transition period.
He has every power, every executive power, legislative power.
So actually, he's an absolute king the way that.
The way the Ayatollah is.
Yeah, exactly.
So what do you believe the next steps have to be to get us to, this is my expression, to the promised land?
Yes.
You know, first thing first, the West, specifically U.S., needs to recognize the right of Iranian people to topple this regime.
Okay.
If there is this recognition, then the Iranian people realize that, you know, there is support, because right now, they still, they're not sure that the world is behind them.
So we need to voice that.
Now, the Iranian...
Don't you think that President Trump's remarks so far have shown support for what they're doing?
Support, but not necessarily regime change.
Regime change by the people.
This needs to be voiced.
This needs to be clearly said that I'm supporting your efforts to topple this regime.
this needs to be said now the next point is that so you you you think it's important rather than saying uh something which is a little uh uh it's pretty close to that but it's a little subtle right um We're in favor of the Iranian people having self-determination.
He said something like that.
Yes.
But what you're saying is, like a lot of American, let's say Lindsey Graham, who will say, or Secretary Pompeo or me.
I came out for regime change eight years ago.
And I filmed something for MEK that would be broadcast right in Iran.
And I said, my greatest dream would be to be here in Tehran with the regime of Tarragon.
And nothing less will assure your future.
You can't make some kind of a, you can't make some kind of a deal with monsters.
Yes.
President Trump in his position as president of the United States needs to clearly state that we support the efforts of Iranian people for regime change.
Because in the scene, that's what the Iranian people are after.
We just need to say that.
And this means a lot.
And also, it's going to affect how other countries are going to deal with the Iranian regime.
So that's it.
Yes.
Can you tell me a little of your background, Doctor?
Because you're very, very interesting.
And I would like to have you on again.
I'd like my audience to get to know you.
Thank you.
You know, I was born raised in Iran till shortly after high school.
And at the time I was supporting resistance in high school.
I took the exam to enter university in Iran and I got a very high score.
And at the time, IRGC would basically would look at every candidate to see if it fits their, you know, who they want to go to.
This was after the Shah's regime.
Yes, early after revolution.
You're a younger man.
I've interviewed some who grew up under the Shah.
So you grew up under this regime of Sharon.
I was 1980, 1981.
Okay, right when they came into power.
1979 and then two years later, that's when, you know, IRGC basically didn't allow me to get into university.
And they wrote a letter to me and said, you need to confirm, conform to the, you know, what they want.
You know, someone who would support the regime and would go to Friday prayer, perhaps go to front to fight at the time there was Iran-Iraq war.
And I was doing, I wasn't doing any of those.
And at the same time, I was known to be supportive of resistance.
Anyway, that's why they denied.
What stage of your life was that when you were graduating from high school?
By the time you were graduating from high school, you had developed resistance, your own internal resistance to this regime as being a denial of human rights and denial of human dignity.
You could say many things.
Did that come from your family?
Where did that?
I mean, not every Iranian or whatever is going to develop it.
I imagine a lot do.
But where did you develop your attitude?
You know, when the revolution mayor happened, the revolution was for freedom.
It wasn't for Islami.
See, those two slogans that I said, independence and freedom.
When Khomeini was given a podium by West, he added the Islamic Republic as the third slogan.
So when revolution started in Iran, the main slogans, which was continuation of, what, 70 years prior to that, was freedom.
It was an Islamic republic.
Khomeini added that.
And even then, the people didn't know what he meant by that.
So at the time, people wanted change.
And really, they thought of him as a, you know, as a religious person that at the time he would say that I'm going to go to Qom.
It's a religious city in Iran.
And he said that.
He said, I don't want any executive power.
I want to go to Qom and teach religion.
And Iranian people, you know, you should realize Mayor Shah, Shah's dictatorship didn't allow political parties in Iran.
So the Iranian people weren't very experienced politically in a political sense of, you know, having parties to join different parties and groups.
So they were a bit naive and they fell for Khomeini.
They thought he's gonna go to Qom and there's going to be a republic.
But Khomeini then revealed his true faith and started to suppress people.
And that's when MEK said no.
And since then, you know, after two years, Khomeini ordered a ordered IRGC 1981, June 20th, 1981, Khomeini ordered IRGC to open fire on a half a million supporters of MEK in Tehran.
And at that point, from next day, MEK went underground and the struggle started to topple this regime.
Now, the MEK was headed then by, was Masoud Rajavi in charge by then?
Masood, since 1975.
So 1975, I want to tell you a point which is important, Mayor.
You know, MEK, you know, they are monoist.
They look at the world not materialistically.
They see a goal to universe.
They don't think it's just an accident.
So they think there's a goal and they try to, you know, to put themselves along that goal to universe.
You know, so for them, they have a purposeful worldview.
Now, Shaw, as you know, 1971, executed the leadership of M.E.K. Isn't that in 81?
1971, 1974.
And from then… Before the revolution.
Yes, yes, 1970.
Eight years prior to revolution, Shah executed the whole leadership of MEK.
And from then, the whole MEK was in prison.
Now, what happened 1975, certain elements which were outside prison, at the time, Mayor, Soviet Union had a lot of influence in third world countries.
A lot of freedom movements, they were influenced by Soviet Union.
So certain elements, they said, you know, we're changing our ideology to Marxism outside prison.
And Masood Rajavi at the time was in prison.
So he set out a 12 poll.
Was he by that time, was he the surviving senior very quickly because they killed three of the senior people, right?
So what happened, Mayor, was before he, in many ways, could be ready for it, which is a great credit to him, he was, he should have had 20, 30 years of grooming.
All of a sudden, these people are killed.
He's in charge.
Yes, yes.
And he was the only one from central committee who survived.
And even though he had death penalty from Shah, but what happened?
You know, Professor Kazem, his brother, was in Switzerland at the time.
And Mitterron was the president of France.
So Mitteran wrote to Shah and asked him not to execute Masoud Rajavi.
So that's how Masood.
Because of the intervention of Masoud's brother with Mitran.
And Jean-Paul Saud.
Yes, Jean-Paul Saud.
Yes.
Yes.
And now, Kazem, in 1990, April 25th, 1990, Khazem, his brother, was assassinated in Geneva in Switzerland.
So Khomeini was, at the time, it was Khomeini, but, you know, regime was after Qazem because Masoud's life depended.
And that's why Masoud is alive because of what Qazem did.
But what I was saying is that Massoud, 1975, in prison, set out a 12-point statement and said MEK is not Marxist to our enemy is the mullahs.
Even though MEK got, it was attacked by supposedly Marxists, but Massoud at the time, 1975, said the threat of the movement is the mullahs, religious rights.
That's what he called them.
So since then, Khomeini knew that his enemy is Masoud Rajavi.
And so that's why after revolution, Masoud Rajavi ran for presidency in 1980.
He wanted to become a president of Iran.
But MEK didn't vote for constitution because the constitution, it has a principle in constitution of Iran, which recognizes supreme religious leader.
And that's why Masud Rajavi and MEK didn't vote for constitution.
And Khomeini said that if you didn't vote for constitution, you cannot become a president.
So that was his argument and arguing against Massoud.
And so didn't allow Masoura Rajavi to run for, to become a president of Iran.
That's how we excluded him.
This is very interesting history.
The people have to know.
I know it's a little hard, but people have to know this.
This is all now 40, 50 years later, very, very relevant to what could happen.
Yes.
Mayor, if MEK and Resistance and Rajavi, they wanted power, as I said, Khomeini just said to accept my leadership as supreme religious leader, you can become a president of Iran.
But Rajavi didn't accept that because he wanted a free Iran that was, and he wouldn't go, what I'm saying, he gave away the power for his principles.
And then since then, because we have to, we're going to do a much longer, if you don't mind, I really have to get this down for the American people, the history of this.
They have to understand this.
And you know, we live in an age in which they only understand, many people only understand soundbites.
And for me, I'm a great history student, great student of history.
And I believe if you don't understand history, you repeat all the mistakes of history.
If you do understand history, you can construct a much better society.
And that isn't my observation individual.
That's the observation of almost every great thinker that you and I could cite.
But that's why it's so important that you tell us this.
And that the group now of the MEK, which has been subjected to the worst demonization I've ever seen.
It gets me angry.
I mean, I know them for 15 years.
When I was introduced to them, I was told by all sorts of people, you shouldn't be involved with them.
They're a revolutionary group.
You shouldn't be involved with them.
They're a communist group.
So I went to John McCain, Senator McCain, who I always trusted on things like this.
And I said, John, tell me about this MEK.
It was really a Jewish group that wanted me to speak for them because of that prejudice, because of the new prime minister.
He said, well, you know, that's all propaganda, Rudy.
That's all propaganda.
It's really amazing how effective the regime is at propaganda.
They're almost as effective as China, and they're more effective than Russia.
I don't know where they get that capability, but they do.
And somehow I don't even understand the sympathy for them.
They have a tremendous amount of sympathy within the State Department and within the permanent government.
He said, you should go work with them because they're the only hope.
They're the only hope over a long period of time that you can get rid of this monstrous government.
So I then did more work.
I read books about it.
I didn't take this lightly and I joined them.
And my experience over 15 years is extremely positive.
I tell Madame Rajavi when she thanks me for what I've done, small things I've done to help them, I said, you've given me one of the greatest purposes of my life, freedom for the Iranian people.
Whenever I speak to them, you know, at the MEK gatherings, and I know that we have a large group inside Iran where they're breaking through and getting in, I always say, I just pray and I'm going to work very hard.
So next year at this time, we can meet in Tehran.
It would be, it would be, I don't know how to describe how happy I would be if there was a day in which that happened and Tehran was a free country, because I have come to know, and I kind of knew from history about the Persian Empire, the great capabilities of your people, what they can contribute, what they can contribute, what they're contributing anyway.
Imagine what they can contribute in freedom.
Yes.
Mayor, you know, Masura Javi, right after anti-monarchial revolution of 1979, he said it in a speech, 1979, the main objective of revolutions should be freedom.
And the main reason that revolutions fail is because they do not abide and they do not stay with that objective.
So he clearly stated that the cause of freedom should be number one if a revolution is going to achieve its objective and it's going to be a positive change.
And also I want to tell you what sets MEK.
MEK has been outside the country for 40 five years now, 44 years.
And think about it.
An organization 44 years outside the country, the bulk of it, a part of the MEK obviously has inside Iran.
But I mean, it's very astonishing how an organization could maintain its commitment and stay with its objective and to be independent.
And there is no example of this mayor in history.
There is no other opposition anywhere in the world that been outside its country for four years and being, I mean, being the vanguard of the change, being the pioneer and being independent.
And the reason that there is so much propaganda against it is because it's independent.
If it would become a puppet like Rezaf Alavi, many, many sides would start supporting it.
I've seen that.
No doubt about that.
No doubt about that.
How about their connection within?
Because in order to, as I think through how do you accomplish this, the Ayatollah has to be removed and replaced.
The IRGC has to be neutralized or at least segments of it defeated.
How do you get that done inside Iran?
If, Mayor, if you set out Iranian people, MEK cannot do anything on its own.
So the reason MEK is successful, because what it does is along historically what the Iranian people want.
So it gets its legitimacy from what the Iranian people want as far as freedom, as far as a modern society.
And the MEK, the reason that so many people come to MEK is that because they've shown that they're selfless.
They don't want anything.
No question about that.
So that attracts the best of Iranian people.
So the best, the smartest, those who can, the most selfless Iranian people, those who want to bring about a change in Iran, the only avenue is through MEK.
There is nothing else.
So that's why MEK is able to attract those and through them can accomplish many things inside.
Now, how do we get from here?
How do we get from here to there?
What is needed now so that the MEK or a group with the MEK, NCRI, the whole group, I interviewed earlier today, one of the representatives of the Azeri community, which I guess is the largest of the minority communities, and they are very, very comfortable with the MEK.
I've also interviewed Belushis and I've interviewed Kurds that are very comfortable with the MEK and very uncomfortable with the Shah.
Now, how do you pull that all together with the military might of the IRGC who will try to kill them?
Yes.
Yes.
Mayor, I just want to make a point first.
And the founder of MEK was Azari.
Yes, yes, yes.
He pointed that out to me.
He was very, very quick to point that out to me, that the founder was Azerbaijan originally.
Yes.
Yes.
Now, see, we need to recognize the strategy.
You know, what the strategy works to regime change.
If we get this right, then the next step is easy.
And the strategy, the question is, how do we know what the strategy to use?
Because there are so many ideas, you know, civil disobedience, some say foreign, you know, military strikes and different strategies.
But see, the strategy, Mayor, is not something that we can invent.
The strategy comes from the regime.
The regime tells you what the strategy works.
The only strategy works against this regime is force.
It's not going to go away.
It's not going to fall.
Nothing is going to bring it down.
No bombardment from air is going to do it.
You have to have people on the ground, committed people, to bring the regime down by force.
That's the strategy.
And that's what regime tells you.
And we saw it in the past week.
This is a regime that can kill thousands within a day or two.
Yes.
So no amount of civil disobedience or strikes or whatever, nothing is going to, and it's not going to be toppled.
It's not going to fall on its own.
You have to bring it down by force.
Now, this is the strategy.
And MEK stands by this strategy.
And the Iranian people recognize that.
There is no other groups in Iran which has that strategy and an organization to defend that strategy.
It's only MEK.
So if it's only MEK, the Iranian people give their best and whatever they have to MEK because this is the only vehicle that they can bring the regime down.
I have to conclude now, and it's really a shame we should go on longer and we will in the future.
But doctor, just tell me a teeny bit about your background again.
How did you end up in Kansas City as a doctor?
Yes, yes.
And how is it that so many expats from Iran turn out to be unbelievably contributory and brilliant Americans?
Thank you, Mayor.
You know, two of my brothers were in America and they came here 1977, 78.
They came to America to study, you know, after high school.
And so when I wanted to come here, I had two brothers here who helped me to come to the United States.
I went to Turkey because at the time there was no embassy in Iran, American embassy.
So from Turkey, I came to the United States.
I did my undergrad medical school residency and my private practice.
So, and the way that I, again, I'm just one of the Iranians because I saw MEK to have the solution.
Your attraction to MEK, you came in the United States.
No, from Iran.
I know some of my high schools.
Yeah, some of my high school classmates got executed in 1981.
And my neighbors, so I know many who, my relatives, I know many who were executed.
And I just, I was familiar at the time I was going to school.
But, you know, MEK was very popular.
And see, when MEK came out of prison, they were just about 200 members.
But soon, when revolution happened, three weeks after they came out of prison, they set out to expand.
And that's why Khomeini was very afraid because MEK became very popular.
They had a newspaper that at the end, it had 600,000 volume a day, 600,000.
At the time, Iran was 36 million population.
So it was very popular, MEK.
And actually, that's one of the reasons they didn't allow me to get into university because they knew I was supportive.
How did you get out of Iran?
It was, you know, just legally, actually.
I went to Turkey and then I had passport.
I got passports.
It was a little bit easier than to do that.
To come here?
Yeah, it was many people left Iran.
They were leaving after Khomeini started.
You know, Mayor, 1981, June 20th on, every night regime would execute hundreds members of MEK.
In the morning, in the newspaper, you would look and let's say there is 100 pictures.
They would say, we don't know who these are, but they were executed last night.
And the parents come and let's say identify and get, you know, they didn't even know the identity of those who were executed.
In 1981, June 20th, 1981, from then on, every night, hundreds members of MEK being executed.
And when did you leave?
So I left 1985.
Oh, so you were there.
You were there during a lot of that.
Yes, yes.
I was there during the war with Iraq.
And those years were very suppression and repression was very at its maximum.
Khomeini was in power then.
You know, Khomeini had even more power than Khomeini at his peak.
I mean, Khomeini was, I mean, unbelievable the amount of power, political, social, and religious power it had all at once.
Doctor, I have to break for a very important meeting we're going to.
I assure you, it's really important.
I wouldn't break for anything given the importance of this conversation.
But thank you very, very much, and God bless you.
Okay?
Thank you.
And we'll be back very shortly.
Thank you.
You made a very big contribution.
Please believe me.
Okay.
Thank you, Mayor.
Well, thank you very, very much for bearing with us.
And the history is so important.
We're going to try to bring it together in a way that's a little bit easier for everyone to access.
But I want to thank you very much for bearing with us.
And I want to thank the doctor because telling these stories is very, very difficult.
They're going over some of the worst periods of their life.
I mean, I've been with them.
You have no idea how these people have been treated.
We don't know torture in the United States.
We really don't.
They do.
So pray for the people of Iran, please.
It's a weekend.
We're coming up on a Sunday and a Saturday, the holy day for the Jews and Holy Day for the Christians.
This is the time to offer some degree of prayer for the people who are in the worst kinds of suffering.
And those are the people in Iran and the people in Israel and the people in Ukraine who are still waiting for a solution to the Putin savage attack on them.
And also to the people of Venezuela and our people, our people who are going through a transition.
But I just feel we're just right there.
This is the greatest superpower in the world.
There's nothing like us.
You know why there's nothing?
I don't know of a superpower ever tied like a rock to principle, to principles that come out of the Jewish religion and the Christian religion.
And you pray.
This is the weekend to pray.
Pray to God.
And you know, it all rests in one guy, Donald Trump.
You pray for him.
He's done a great job, but he can't do it without God's help, without yours.
Stay tuned this weekend in case anything happens.
We'll be in the press pool.
Anything?
Teddy's going to be in the press pool tomorrow.
We'll let you see it.
Also, we'll be there on Sunday if anything happens.
And on Monday, and then we'll be back at 7 Wendell TV on 8 on our great America Mayor Live.
God bless America!
It's our purpose to bring to bear the principle of common sense and rational discussion to the issues of our day.
America was created at a time of great turmoil, tremendous disagreements, anger, hatred.
There was a book written in 1776 that guided much of the discipline of thinking that brought to us the discovery of our freedoms, of our God-given freedoms.
It was Thomas Paine's Common Sense, written in 1776, one of the first American bestsellers, in which Thomas Paine explained, by rational principles, the reason why these small colonies felt the necessity to separate from the Kingdom of Great Britain and the King of England.
He explained their inherent desire for liberty, for freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the ability to select the people who govern them.
And he explained it in ways that were understandable to all the people, not just the elite.
Because the desire for freedom is universal.
The desire for freedom adheres in the human mind and it is part of the human soul.
This is exactly the time we should consult our history.
Look at what we've done in the past and see if we can't use it to help us now.
We understand that our founders created the greatest country in the history of the world.
The greatest democracy, the freest country, a country that has taken more people out of poverty than any country ever.
All of us are so fortunate to be Americans.
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