Extra: Iranian Americans on Fleeing Tyranny and Iran’s Future

In 2024, a truck crashed into Canaw in Moresque, where I work.

146 of our dogs needed homes fast.

We asked for help on Facebook.

Our stories spread through WhatsApp messages and Instagram reposts.

Immediately, people stepped up.

And just six hours later, every dog was fostered.

I'll never forget how our community showed up for us.

Learn how over 3.5 billion people connect to what matters with meta

at meta.com slash community.

This episode is brought to you by Colaguard.

Do you know what's really scary?

Not screening for colon cancer when you turn 45.

The colaguard test is non-invasive, requires no special proper time off work,

and ships right to your door.

In just three simple steps, colaguard takes the scare out of colon cancer screening.

If you're 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about the colaguard test.

Colaguard is available by prescription only.

Learn more or request a prescription today at colaguard.com slash screen.

This is the Fox News rundown extra.

I'm Jessica Rosenthal.

This past week, we spoke with two Iranian-Americans, Dr.

Human Hamadi, a board certified physician, and Tabbit Refile,

a Los Angeles-based journalist and activist.

Both remember why their families fled the Iranian regime decades ago,

and the oppression and fear they felt either fleeing from or living under

the first Ayatollah.

They also shared their reactions to Operation Epic Fury,

the deaths of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,

and much of Iran's leadership, and explained why they have high hopes for the country's future,

and also feel immense gratitude to the United States.

We made some edits for time and thought you might like to hear more what they had to say.

First, you'll hear our full conversation with Dr. Hamadi, followed by Tabbit Refile.

Thanks for listening, and if you don't already, please follow the weekday Fox News rundown podcast.

Now, here's Dr. Human Hamadi on the Fox News rundown Extra.

I just wanted to ask you, we kind of want our listeners to know

about how many people live in the United States

who had to leave Iran.

And so I just wanted to know first off,

are you feeling right now celebratory?

Are you feeling cautious?

Like what's next?

Is it a big mix of feelings?

Yeah, I think I, and most of the Iranian Jewish community living in the U.S.

and anywhere outside Iran is feeling the same things.

We are feeling extremely celebratory,

but at the same time, very apprehensive,

because nothing is finished yet, right?

The regime is still technically there and in charge, and they can still cause

many, many problems.

The people do not have a free government.

They don't have the ability to do anything they want.

Just last night, there are videos online of regime soldiers and officials

shooting at people in their balconies who were chanting

for the Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi to return,

and they were greeted by gunfire from the street below.

So there's nothing that has been achieved yet in terms of

actually delivering that freedom, but we're on our way there.

So we're, I'm cautiously optimistic.

They're cautiously optimistic.

It's a middle of a war zone right now.

So it's impossible to fully celebrate

until things are final, and there's a lot that has to happen between now and then.

Remind us of your story,

human, when your family fled Iran.

I know you actually have memories of being there.

I do so on my earliest memories are of 1979.

I was three years old at the time.

We were living in an apartment looking right down on central Tehran,

and we can see one of the main streets,

Yusuf Abad that would go right past our house and into downtown.

And I remember as a child,

I would always sit on this little ledge looking out the window.

And my, literally, my earliest memory is of hearing of noises,

chants, people marching in the streets,

and seeing smoke from people burning tires in the streets.

And that was how the revolution started really coming about,

is with these people crowds in the streets,

burning tires, chanting those chants eventually turned into violence,

and those burning tires turned into burning buildings.

And that's what really caused the whole revolution to

spiral out of control and bring the new regime in place,

and house the old one, and the rest is history.

So I was there at that point, and my family is very fortunate,

and our entire community is very fortunate,

because almost all of us got out,

and most of us ended up in the US,

many in New York, and the majority in Los Angeles,

and for that, I'm eternally grateful,

and I think most of our community is grateful,

where people who came from an enemy country,

speaking little to no English,

having nothing but to close on our backs, literally nothing.

The one thing we had was extreme belief in the American dream,

a lot of patriotism, and most with a lot of education.

And we came here, and we were delivered the American dream,

we achieved it, and there's no way that we can pay the US,

back for that, and this is why I do what I do,

and this is why I speak out when I speak out,

and that's why there's so many Iranian-Americans

in the streets in the US, and abroad,

today celebrating what's happening,

and encouraging more to be done to get rid of the current regime,

because we're grateful.

And this is why those of us from Los Angeles

also affectionately call it tarangeless,

just to add that in there.

Who, man, what did your parents tell you about the decision to leave,

since then?

Like, what did they remember?

What are the stories they have since told you,

as you've aged, as you've gotten older,

that they felt like they could share with you about maybe the fear

or the trepidation or what it was like for the older generations of Iranians

who had to make the call to get out?

Yeah, obviously, I was three,

so I was too young to participate in anything,

to really understand what was happening at the time,

but what I do remember is my parents were an extreme fear.

We had to sleep underneath our mattress

in order to prevent the broken glass

that something blown up next to our building

from landing on us in the middle of the night.

And so that's the kind of life we had,

was one guided by fear.

And I think it was a decision that was made systematically

that everyone in the community basically

got together in synagogues at each other's homes

and said, we have to get out of here.

We see the writing on the wall.

This is a regime taking over that will either kill us

or make it impossible for us to live our lives

in any way that is worth living.

So let's get out as quickly as we can.

And this is why I think it was a group migration.

Almost everyone left around that same time.

There was some who had reasons to stay

or couldn't get out as easily,

but those who wanted to leave

by and large made it out at a decent time.

Many decided to stay or forced to stay

and got out at different times later on.

And they have stories that are just so compelling

because you actually hear what it was like

from them as children and young adults

to live in this hell, especially as Jews

or even as regular ordinary Iranians

having to live under this level of oppression

that is Americans we could never understand

or appreciate.

And so when I talk about my own experience,

I was one of the lucky ones.

I got out before it really got horrible.

But there are so many others who lived there

for quite a long time and worse,

there are so many who are still there

today of all backgrounds,

especially people who are not Jewish,

who are Muslims who did not have a way of getting out

or thought that it was going to get better.

And it never did.

It just kept getting worse.

And so I have a bit of survivor's guilt

in that I'm one of the ones who made it out

and there's so many who've lived under this extreme

oppression that I never got to see.

And if I can do one thing to give back,

it is to make sure that all these people

who have lived a life of tyranny

for their entire lives or most of their lives

have the opportunity to see what I've seen

and experience what I've experienced.

The thing about Iranians who left,

they don't remember a bad place entirely.

Like many would even want to go visit if they could.

And the Iranians I've met in LA,

they've kept their culture,

you know, when you're in a Persian home,

you know it, the smells, the food.

I mean, the food doesn't change.

Persons are total food snobs.

They're so proud of being from Iran

and are really heartbroken about what happened.

They didn't feel like they were fleeing

up a place or a culture.

They were fleeing a regime to your point.

Like can you tell us about this pride in being Iranian?

It's incredibly true.

And I have to note first that yes,

Iranian Americans have we've kept that culture very strongly.

We've kept our traditions.

Many have kept the language.

Some have kept their Persian accent.

I obviously was too young.

That said, we're probably the one immigrant community

that is assimilated into America the most,

where people have so deeply integrated into American culture

that you wouldn't tell unless you went to someone's home

where taking part in some type of tradition

only to realize, wow, they are really hardcore.

So yes, it is a country and it's a population of people

who have great pride in the art, the music, the poetry.

As you mentioned, the food, the customs,

the traditions, there's a custom called Tarof

where if you have a guest in your house or a guest

in your business, you have to offer them the shirt off your back.

If someone complements your rug or your tea kettle

or anything, you have to offer it to them multiple times.

And they have to turn it down multiple times.

Otherwise, you give it to them.

I'm not getting.

And it's happened to me and this is how we are.

It's a very hospitable society.

And so we do remember what the country was.

And that's the whole point.

All of us remember what it was like

and want it to go back to what it was like.

And the beauty is because those traditions

because that culture was never lost, it has that potential.

When you look at any of these other countries in the Middle East

that have lived under tyranny for much, much longer

for hundreds of years, right?

Thousand years, it's impossible to go back

because there's nothing left.

There's no historical memory.

In this case, 1979 to now is 47 years.

There are a lot of people who were full-blown adults there

when they came here.

Then they can easily resurrect so much of that.

And there is a will to do that.

And I'll tell you, we go in LA.

We buy ice cream from the same guy who used to make ice cream

for my mom when she was growing up in Iran.

We go to the same kosher butcher who was selling kosher meat

in Tehran when I was a kid.

There are so many of the businesses

that transferred over that are still operational.

And it was really remarkable.

Right now, new fan duel customers can get up to $300

back in bonus bets every day for 10 days.

Place a tournament bet using the token.

And if it doesn't win, you'll get up to $300 back

in bonus bets every single day for 10 days straight.

You can even mix things up with same game parlays

for a shot at a bigger payout.

Fan duel.

It's time to dance.

21 plus in present and select seats.

Bonus bets are non-withdrawable and expire seven days

after received.

Tokens are received in increments of one per day.

Restrictions apply.

See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com.

Gamley problem call 1-800-Gamler.

Couple more for you.

Who man, when you found out that the eye toll was killed?

What was your first reaction?

It was impossible not to celebrate,

not because there was a person who was killed,

but because there was an evil entity who represented

the worst kind of evil that has existed on this earth

since the 1940s.

Right?

And we know who else was before that.

And it's impossible not to celebrate the death of that,

of that kind of evil.

That said, you know that it's not erased off the earth

because that was one man and some of his loyal assistants,

but there are many more left.

And so I think it's really a matter of rooting all of that out

and putting in leadership that actually respects the people

and gives them the freedom that they deserve

and they long for.

And what are you hoping for in terms of what's next?

I know the fear is, and President Trump

addressed this, the worst case scenario,

is that, you know, you try and cut off the head of the snake

and two more heads pop up in its place,

just given the theocratic nature of this regime

that it's ruled by mullahs.

And I just wonder, is it possible to,

like how do you see this playing out?

How do you hope it plays out so that the actual people

that could replace another eye toll and another eye toll

and another eye toll that that sort of trajectory

does not come to pass and that there is actual freedom.

It sounds like a, it sounds like an uphill climb.

Well, it is an uphill climb.

That said, I think we're past the point

of no return at this point, right?

This regime only stayed in power,

not because people believed in them

or cared about them, they hate them.

They stayed in power through force and fear

and now that their tools of force

and their tools of fear are being dramatically

taken away from them.

They don't have any of their government buildings,

a lot of their equipment and weaponry is gone.

Their leadership, communication, command, gone.

How are they going to do that to the people anymore, right?

And this is just getting started.

It's been at just a few days since Saturday.

Imagine how much more of the regime's oppression apparatus

will be dismantled.

Their political prisons, their centers of power,

many of the people themselves,

it's going to reach a point.

At some point where they cannot reconstitute their power

and they're either going to be dead,

they're going to be run out of town or both.

And at some point, by the way,

when that balance of power tips,

the people are going to start taking action.

They're going to go back into the streets

as they already are to some degree,

but they're going to be emboldened to fight.

And the regime has nothing with which to fight back

and start killing them by the tens of thousands

as they did just a few weeks back.

Dr. Human Hamadi, thank you so much

for joining us and sharing your story.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Jessica, pleasure.

That was Dr. Human Hamadi.

Now, once again, here's Los Angeles-based journalist

and Iranian-American activist Tabi Rafale

on the Fox News rundown extra.

Let's start with the weekend.

When you heard that the IITUAL had been killed

and many others, what was your reaction?

So it's actually fascinating because as an Iranian-American

Jew, I keep the laws related to the Sabbath.

And so I was off of all phone laptops, social media,

everything.

Usually I am for about 26 hours.

And I didn't realize what had happened.

This unbelievable watershed moment I had waited

my whole life for until my dad paid me a visit at home.

And he walked in.

We had a dozen guests that day for Shabbat lunch.

And he walked in and I said, oh, hi, dad.

And he said, Tabi, that's it.

War has begun.

And I screamed.

I said, what?

And then he said, and they killed Hominay.

And I said, what?

And I screamed so loudly.

I had guests running out of the bathroom

asking what had happened.

You would have thought that my own house was

gone for a bit under some kind of ballistic missile attack.

And then all I wanted to do was cry and sob tears of joy

because you have to understand they've never gotten Hominay.

I think they've been able to.

But for some reason, maybe they

didn't want to touch them, especially in June's war.

And so he was so much more than a dictator for us.

He was the emblem, the absolute symbol

of everything nefarious.

I mean, if my trauma had a face, it would be his,

along with, of course, his predecessor, Hominay Hominay.

So I started screaming and then I

wanted to just sob tears of joy because of all of this.

But I couldn't, you see, because on the Sabbath,

you're not really supposed to cry.

It's supposed to be a day where you're

trying to access the utmost abundance and joy

and not think about life's problems.

So it was, it really was one of the most memorable moments

of my life.

But it was also, and this is so important,

immediately tempered by reality.

I've seen a lot of Iranians, especially those

in my situation and the diaspora.

There are millions of us.

And for them, it was on all unadulterated joy.

But as much as I yelled with absolute ecstatic disbelief,

me being who I am with the history that I have,

and we can talk about this at length

more with a third of my family who

escaped to America's refugees,

a third who escaped post-level revolutionary Iran

and went to Israel, and a third who

were left behind in Iran, it's complicated.

It's really complicated.

My joy was and continues to be tempered

with a lot of grief and anxiety.

This is war.

This is war.

We can dance, but we also have to remember

the reality on the ground.

Tabi, what are your hopes and fears

about what's next, about the possibility of an Iran

without an Ayatollah or a theocratic regime?

Is it possible?

Or is this, I mean, the President Trump said this week,

the worst case scenario is that in a few years,

you end up with somebody just as bad or worse.

Right.

So I completely understand that average Americans

concern that you might be replacing one very historic evil

in the form of the mullahs with another.

And we can wait to see what that is.

But I really have to say here, as someone

who was born in Tehran, the peace capital of the world

had after the revolution, with roots

dating back 2,700 years to the ancient Jewish community

of Persia and then Iran, you are not

talking about an Arab country.

Iranians are, I believe.

And I can find the facts for you to back this up.

Among the most educated, secular people

in the entire Middle East.

Unfortunately, our generation has only

seen almost 50 years of this rapid religious fanaticism.

But you and I know, if you talk to any average Iranian,

whether back there or in the diaspora,

this is somebody who is most likely highly educated,

secular, extremely proud culturally

of Persian civilization, of those many thousands

of years worth of Persian civilization.

And unarmed, which is important, this

isn't Saddam being captured or Qaddafi

or in other Arab countries by armed militias

and thugs going around.

So I actually am not concerned in the long term

about Iran falling again into violent or radical hands,

particularly because I had the honor

of having sat down with the exiled Iranian crown prince

Reza Pahlavi on two occasions in the last two years or so.

And I have tremendous hope and excitement

for a leader like him, again, highly educated, sophisticated,

secular, his vision aligns with that of most Iranians.

And that's the best that you can hope for.

But you did ask me if I do have some fears

and I do have to share with you.

Yes.

Look, there have been Iranian cells here

for decades in the US.

And the US and Israel had a joint mission

in which they just eliminated a lot of senior Iranian leadership,

including the head himself, Khamenei.

And they may not take that lying down.

I believe today, you know, the government here

in the US government issued a statement that, look,

they're not expecting anything God forbid wide scale.

There's probably going to be some hacking.

There may be some small scale level stuff.

But we do have to keep those threats in mind.

Again, as an Iranian, I have an outlook on these things,

which is much more realistic because you see,

I was born into the theocracy,

having been born into the 1980s.

And so you have to understand,

the mindset of the Ayatollahs was something

that was exported out of the country

because Khamenei wanted to export his revolution.

But, and here is the big but.

The mindset of the Mullahs for the last 50 years or so

was also trickled down to every level of Iranian society

when I was a child there.

And that included a school children at the time.

And so I know they're slogans.

I know their ideologies because I had to stand there

as a little girl in the late 1980s

when I later found out my American peers

were like dancing to Madonna and Michael Jackson

and watching Hulk Hogan on TV.

We didn't have any of that.

I was standing there in my mandatory hijab,

even though I was a little Jewish girl.

And my mandatory Islamic head covering,

standing on that Tehran playground every day

while an administrator held up a megaphone

and I had to scream along with all the other

and little girls on the playground.

Mag-bar, Amriqa, Mag-bar, Israel, death to America,

death to Israel, death to these Zionists,

math problems, asking us if you shoot at the Americans

or the Zionists, how many are left?

I mean, talk to Iranian Americans on the ground here,

the ones that aren't either pro-regime or pro-regime

because they're paid by the regime.

And they will tell you these similar stories.

They understand these ideologies

because we understand the ideologies,

we also understand the threats.

And I think that's one thing that Americans should keep in mind

because you did ask me about my fears too.

It is wild.

I mean, I've followed you on Facebook for a long time

and you've always been very entertaining

and very funny about it.

But it is wild to hear you and read over the years,

the stories about what you recall

before your family left, how old were you when you left?

Do you remember, was it a tense feeling to have to flee?

So I actually remember everything.

I was seven when we arrived in the US

protected refugees in the late 1980s.

But I remember everything that was sort of important

enough to remember about Iran

because it was such a tumultuous childhood.

I was born after the years of the revolution,

which means I learned how to tie my head scarf

before I learned how to tie my shoes, okay?

I came to America, I didn't know how to tie shoes.

But I knew how to tie a mandatory Islamic head scarf

really well, by the way,

except that I had very fine, soft hairs

and they always came out of the sides of the scarf.

So the teachers and administrators back in the Tehran school

always slammed my hands down really hard with a ruler.

I hate rulers, by the way, and I hate megaphones.

There are two things that are out loud in my home.

But I remember everything because of that

and because I'm a child survivor of the Iranian rock war,

which lasted eight years,

started before I was even born,

it lasted from 1980 to 1988.

And so the combination of having been born

into really violent religious fanaticism,

the kind that also isn't exactly friendly towards females

and Jews and I'm both.

The combination of having lived during the Iran-Iraq war

when Iraqi missiles were bombing our neighborhood

sometimes on a daily basis because in Tehran,

we live near the government buildings.

In fact, our old house is actually located

about 500 meters from where they dropped those 30 bombs

on Hamane's compound over the weekend.

And it was, like I said, such a tumultuous time.

It was a very tense time.

I have to tell you, I have a special connection

with these Israeli kids,

whether right now or whether 20 years ago

in steroids in Southern Israel,

who are constantly hearing those sirens

telling them to run for cover into bomb shelters.

Not because I had bomb shelters, please.

You think Iran would build bomb shelters for its civilians?

Please, like please, please, okay?

That their buildings aren't even up to code,

which is why it's so tragic during major earthquakes

that you have all of these casualties over in Iran.

But you know why I sympathize so much with them

is because in those formative years of my childhood,

those sirens would go off throughout the city

of another impending Iraqi aerial strike,

thanks to Saddam Hussein and his Air Force.

And you would run for cover wherever you could,

but there were no bomb shelters, you see.

So I understand all of it.

It's taken a lifetime to try to yield from it.

Sometimes I can be a hoot at dinner parties

because I have a few stories if you can imagine.

And when here in Los Angeles, you know,

when ambulances and fire trucks go by,

you will see that I usually close my eyes.

I cover my ears.

Sometimes I have to hug myself

and kind of rock myself back and forth.

And because I have to say tabby,

you're not under an aerial bombardment anymore.

You've always had such a sense of humor about it too.

You have to, Jessica, you actually really have to,

everyone has problems.

Life is hard for everyone.

It's just a matter of being on a spectrum

of how hard it is for you versus me versus someone else.

You have to find the humor in everything,

even sometimes oppression, even sometimes war.

You know, at the height of the propaganda

that we were being taught in Iran as school children,

you know what we used to do?

We would take the slogans that they would force us to say

and we would warp them and turn them around

and curse the mullahs themselves with them.

Ranians are actually some of the funniest people

you will ever meet because we truly have our finger

on the pulse of what it is to live, to live.

And life is as many lows as it is highs

and you have to find the humor in it.

How can we help make stronger communities happen?

Well, at JPMorgan Chase, we invest in what's working.

In businesses that create more jobs,

in hospitals delivering care where it's needed the most,

in workers building new buildings, bridges, and roads,

connecting what we need to where we live.

Make the green grass grow all around all around,

make the green grass grow all around.

Make momentum happen.

Learn more at jpmorganchase.com slash impact.

I want to ask you one more thing.

We have some new fox pulling about Americans' thoughts

on what's going on in Iran.

And there are quite a few results,

but I'll just share these with you.

The support for these strikes on Iran is split, 50.50.

A majority, barely, 51% feel these strikes

have made us less safe.

From your perspective, given what you've gone through,

what do you say when you hear that?

Well, first I say that in the short term,

they may be making us less safe.

I was devastated by the loss of,

I believe now the number is up to six US servicemen

that were killed since this war began.

But here's the thing, I'll share two thoughts with you.

Number one, as a moderate with hawkish foreign policy

tendencies, obviously, given my background

and my life experience, I will tell you

the Americans really need to stop thinking

that Iranians can somehow magically overturn this regime

peacefully at this point.

For 47 years, they have been mowed down in the streets,

pulled out of their homes and dragged towards jails

or hung from cranes.

I understand as a child survivor of war

that war may be in some cases the last option,

but in other cases, it is not.

In other cases, strength through those arms

is the only way when your civilian population on the ground

is on armed and has been mowed down for years,

including by the way in January,

when you had somewhere between 30 to 40,000 of them butchered

because they're unarmed.

Okay?

So, you know, it's hard for me.

This is my former homeland.

This is my capital city.

This is where I was born.

This is a land where for 2,700 years,

every ancestor that I had was born and lived their life

and was buried on Iranian soil.

And if I, as an Iranian, I'm telling you

that I welcome with a measured sense of bitter sweetness

for those caught in the crossfires that I welcome

what is happening right now, please believe me.

Please believe us.

And I will end with this.

In absolute awe, and I'm gonna try to say this

without crying, in absolute awe and eternal gratitude

for the sacrifice that our U.S. service men and women

gave in fighting in Iraq.

I have to tell you, 23 years ago, we fought the wrong country.

It should have been Iran.

And if we had gone in in 2003,

their nuclear program was nothing compared

to what it is today.

Their ballistic missile program was nothing

compared to what it eventually became.

And I say this with absolute honor and awe

for our service members there,

but 20 over 20 years ago,

it should have been Iran all along.

And by the way, it's not easy being a Californian either.

On Monday, our governor over here

issued such a scathing cowardly pandering

to the most radical aspects of his base.

And I say this as a moderate.

Remember, statement in front of all of the cameras,

actually using regime propaganda messaging,

he said that it's not okay that Israel and America

are working together and dropping bombs

on places like girl schools.

That girl school was hit by any Iranian missile accidentally

or maybe even on purpose

because they knew they could blame the Americans

and the Israelis.

I will say this at this point, at this point,

I would rather vote for the new Ayatollah

over Gavin Newsom for the next president

of the United States.

I appreciate you.

Tabir a file.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Appreciate your insights.

Thank you for giving me a voice

because I know that if I had stayed in Iran,

this would never have been an opportunity for me.

It's a privilege.

You've been listening to the Fox News rundown.

And now stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast

at FoxNewsPodcasts.com.

Listen to AdFree on Fox News Podcasts

plus on Apple Podcasts.

And, prime members can listen to the show AdFree

on Amazon Music.

And for up to the minute news, go to FoxNews.com.

And you can take the time pursuing your passions.

Time one spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing,

now spent challenging and innovating

and pushing your way to greatness.

So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens

or that daunting beef Wellington recipe card

and leave the laundry to us.

Rinse, it's time to be great.