Stuart. Stuart. What do you want to say about to the Muslim community about your remarks? Stewart. Ex-obama adviser Stuart Sadowitz, who went viral just last week for targeting a halal [00:00:20] food vendor with Islamophobic remarks and rants caught on video, has officially been charged with a hate crime. Now, let's dive into the story before we get into the charges. Some of you might have missed the initial reporting on this, so let's get to that background. Sadowitz served in the Obama administration, in addition to serving [00:00:40] as deputy director slash senior political officer in the United States Department or the US State Department's Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs. So he served in that role from 1999 to 2003. [00:00:56] Now, throughout a two week period, he felt the need to just incessantly harass a 24 year old man by the name of Mohammed Hussein multiple times, just calling him things like terrorists and rapists. And so here are just some of the vile things that he said to this food vendor. [00:01:16] But you're a terrorist. You support terrorists. Listen, go. I'm not support something. - You support terrorism. - I'm not. Some go. I'm just working here. You're a terrible person. You're considering. Not me. Go. My kids. What about my kids? [00:01:31] You kill children, not me. Go! I didn't kill children, okay? Why is she here? Why? If we kill 4000 Palestinian kids. You know what? It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. Did you rape your daughter like Mohammed did? Did you rape your daughter like Mohammed? Speak English. [00:01:47] You only speak English? No. Speak English. You don't speak English? Yes. All right. That's. See, that just shows how ignorant you are. I thought that you pray to a criminal. - Listen, listen. - I'm working now, okay? Can you leave, please? Go, please. I'm not working. I'm just working here. There's nobody here. [00:02:04] I'm looking to big signs here that say this guy is believes in Hamas. So before I get to the update on this story, including the charges, I have to ask you, was what you think about what you just watched, what you just heard? I mean, he literally says, you know, if we killed 4000 Palestinian children, [00:02:23] it wasn't enough. I mean, that's generally how hard liners Zionists think. Everything to maintain the status quo of the state of Israel is justified. And so I'm not surprised by that level of thinking [00:02:40] like the hardest liners of Zionism. This is this is par for the course, to be honest. And so I'm not that shocked. I am a little bit surprised that this guy actually worked at the freaking State Department. [00:02:55] Working on this particular, you know, situation that that's kind of surprising that they have this level of right wing, hard line sicko actually working on official policy for this thing. But no, I'm not surprised when I hear a Zionist speak this way. [00:03:13] Yeah. And I want to be clear, he served in that role in the US State Department from 1999 to 2003, which was obviously before Obama's time. But he later served in the Obama administration as an advisor. So he did have a role within the Obama administration. [00:03:31] Now, after those comments went viral, New York police decided to investigate it. They have a hate crimes unit, and they began this investigation. New York City Councilwoman Julie Menin tweeted the day the videos were released [00:03:46] and went viral, that this is vile hate speech and harassment and truly abhorrent. I have contacted the NYPD and they are reviewing these videos. There is no place for hate in our community and city. Now look, there were calls for him to face charges for what he was engaging in. [00:04:06] I wasn't sure what they would charge him with. Obviously he is motivated by hatred. Obviously he is harassing this guy because he didn't do it once. He didn't do it twice. He's done it several times and each time it's been caught on video. But two days later, Sadowitz was arrested and charged with aggravated harassment [00:04:26] and several counts of stalking. So what you're seeing on the screen right now is the charging details or the details of the charges in the New York Criminal Court, and I was surprised to see that this happened. I really didn't think he would be charged with anything. [00:04:43] Now, Sadowitz confirmed that he was in fact the individual spewing hatred in the videos. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. He also continued making excuses for his behavior, claiming things that have been unproven unfounded. [00:05:00] He says that the vendor expressed his support for Hamas. I find that really hard to believe. Like really a halal vendor, like out of nowhere is just like I support Hamas. Of all places. Yeah, that seems like bad for business, probably. [00:05:15] - Yeah. - I'm not buying it at all. I'm just not. And the videos do not depict any comments by the vendor, so there's no evidence of him saying that he's supportive of Hamas. Now, with that said Stewart, Sadowitz says the following. [00:05:31] At that point I got rather upset, and I've said things to him that in retrospect, I probably regret, though, that I do regret. Instead of focusing in on him and what he said, I expanded into insulting his religion and so on. [00:05:48] Sadowitz told City and State that, quote, if I had to do it all over again, I would not have raised the religious aspect, adding, I don't think I'm an Islamophobic guy. Of course you don't. I've spoken up. I've spoken up for equal treatment of Muslims on numerous occasions [00:06:06] with numerous different people. I just think that Palestinian children should be slaughtered, and that slaughtering 4000 of them in the recent fighting wasn't enough. And by the way, the death toll among the children has actually gone up since then, but I just can't imagine. [00:06:23] Look, identity is a powerful thing, I get it, I totally understand that. I remember how I felt as I was watching video footage of, like, ancient Armenian churches in Nagorno-Karabakh being bombed by Azerbaijan. [00:06:40] I remember feeling deep anger, a lot of resentment for the government and military of Azerbaijan, but never in a in a there wasn't a single moment where I thought to myself, oh, we should do indiscriminate bombings in Azerbaijan. [00:06:56] We should slaughter their children like you have to be a real sick person to think about that and to want that and to justify that. In my opinion. I don't know. It's just and like, I just love how he's like, I plead not guilty to these charges. [00:07:11] And then in subsequent interviews, he's like, yeah, you know, I did say these terrible things and in retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have. Okay, then why did you plead not guilty? Clearly you're admitting that you engaged in this behavior, you know. But, you know, what's most important is he doesn't think he's in his homophobic. He's just, you know, he doesn't. I don't think so. [00:07:29] Like, I've only just said some of the most vile and hateful stuff about an entire religion and people in that video. But I don't think I'm like against them in any way. I just like to say hateful things about them. [00:07:45] Yeah, it's just the lack of self-awareness is pretty incredible. But I do want to move on to a happier angle to this story because, look, I want to just make a point about how most people, even in the darkest [00:08:00] times, are good, kind people. And that's certainly true of the New Yorkers who have gone out of their way to show support for this halal food vendor. They have decided to show their support by supporting his business. [00:08:15] And so after the videos went viral, the community rallied behind the food vendor and stuck up for him against Zelda Weitz's claims. And so let's take a look at what that looks like. I watched the video and. You know, I saw that my street corner and I immediately ran to the cart [00:08:31] because to me, my heart is angry and broken that anybody would mess with my friends or my people. When I walk my dog at nighttime, they're always on the lookout. They give me a free falafel. - They're part of the community. - I feel ashamed that. A guy in such ranking would would use such a language to talk about, [00:08:50] to talk to a 24 year old that's not even responding to him. He's a very good kid. He's. He keeps everything to himself and he's a good kid. So he's going to move on. And apparently there there has been long lines for this vendor [00:09:06] located in the Upper East Side. Adam Halal Food Cart was bustling with customers, neighbors and reporters Wednesday morning after the videos showing Zelda Weitz's tirades went viral, people stopped to show their support for the employees running it, while others placed orders online. [00:09:24] So I love that. And look was you are a proud New Yorker. You're living in LA right now. But you know, I just love what that woman said about how these vendors are part of the community and that they look out for one another, you know, for other members of the community. I mean, it's it's that's just kind of what it is. [00:09:41] If you if you don't live in New York, you don't realize that a lot of the convenience stores, the stores that you go in every single day to get milk and eggs and things of that nature get a sandwich. They're run by a lot of Arab people, a lot of people from Yemen, Pakistan, etcetera. [00:09:58] And, you know, nine times out of ten, these are Muslim people. And so, yeah, you become close to these folks, you hang out with them every single day, you crack jokes, you talk about the Knicks, you like they're a part of your daily life. And so I'm not surprised that the people in that neighborhood [00:10:15] rallied around this kid because, like, that's that's just how it is. These people become enmeshed in what you do. I think, you know, in LA, like, we we try to do our best to find community, but it's just, you know, it's just one of those things. It just doesn't happen in that same way that it does where, you know, again, [00:10:35] like your neighborhood store that you go to get bread from, oftentimes is run by Muslim people. Yeah. No, it's so true. I mean, it's just the landscape is so different in LA. It's it's sprawling and it's not walkable in most parts of Los Angeles. [00:10:52] And so it's harder to establish that sense of community. Whereas in New York, obviously there's better public transportation. It's densely populated. And so I totally get what you're saying there. One final thing I'll report on this story is the reaction that Sadowitz had [00:11:08] once he found out that his employer, his employer, dropped him and condemned him. It's Gotham government relations. They dropped Sadowitz after these videos came to light, and they released a statement about. Ending all affiliation with Sadowitz, and Sadowitz wasn't happy about it. [00:11:26] He says he was blindsided by it. He doesn't understand why they put out a statement condemning him. Quote, I haven't done work with Gotham for a very long time. I had a high position or, I'm sorry, a high opinion of the people at Gotham up until I found out that they had issued the statement. [00:11:42] I consider the people at Gotham to be friends, and I haven't had a chance to speak to them, or to try to speak to them as to why they felt the need to issue this statement. But apparently they don't consider him a friend because the founder and president of Gotham, David Schwartz, told City and State the following. [00:12:01] I'll represent the food vendor pro bono if he wants to bring a lawsuit against Stewart Zelda, which I'm absolutely outraged by this video. So just. Awesomeness all around in terms of like the community coming together to support this vendor and to condemn the absolutely disgusting rhetoric [00:12:20] and harassment coming from Sadowitz. All right. Any final words on this before we move on? No, it's it's. Look, I'm somebody who rails against the concept of a quote unquote, cancel culture. This brother is not being canceled. This guy went out of his way to in multiple times, you know, [00:12:39] he didn't just have a bad moment. Say you, you Arab piece of crap, blah, blah, blah. No, he came back multiple times, man. Talked about this man's faith, talked about dead children and God. Like, this is this guy is he's getting what's coming to him. - He he's getting what he deserves. - Thanks for watching the video, guys. [00:12:58] We also love it if you hit the join button below because that makes you a member. And members allow us to be independent, honest. We could be as progressive as we want, no corporate media influence. And that's all because of you guys. We love doing the show with our members. Hit the join button. Become one of the Young Turks.