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CTP (S3E119) The Battle for Islam's Soul: Dr. Zuhdi Jasser

• Joseph M. Lenard | Christian Activist & Author in Politics

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CTP (S3E119) The Battle for Islam's Soul: Dr. Zuhdi Jasser
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser shares his journey as a reform-minded Muslim, Navy veteran, and physician running for Congress in Arizona's 4th District to advance constitutional principles and American values.
• Son of Syrian immigrants who escaped in 1966 and received political asylum in America
• Served in the Navy as ship doctor during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia
• Founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy after 9/11 to combat radical Islam
• Author of "Reform: The Battle for the Soul of Islam" advocating separation of mosque and state
• Currently challenging Greg Stanton for Arizona's 4th Congressional District
• Advocates for affordable housing, healthcare reform, and strengthened border security
• Endorsed by conservative voices including Hugh Hewitt, Charlie Kirk, and Mark Levin
• Emphasizes meritocracy over identity politics and the importance of American patriotism
• Campaign website: Z4AZ.com where supporters can learn more and contribute

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, aka CTP. I am your host, joseph M Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D. Ctp is your no-must, no-fuss, just me, you and occasional death-type podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in. As Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Chris Tuttutula's podcast. Joining me today is Dr Zutty Jasser, and I've got to admit I've screwed up the spelling of your name more than one time, but I've found a way to fix it right. It's Z-U-H-D-I. Sometimes I would dyslexically mix up the HD, but you're a high-definition guy, awesome. Right, you're an AKTV as opposed to an old RCA 360 cathode ray tube. So HD, now, I'll always get it right. That's awesome. And also a jasser J-A-S-S-E-R. J-a-s-s-e-r, not jasser, you're not a guy with a cornet in a jazz band. You're just see what I'm doing here. Dr Zutty jasser, thank you for joining. How are you?

Speaker 2:

today Wonderful. It's great to be with you, joe, and thank you so much for your program and for having me on. It's great to catch back up with you again. It's been a while.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I tried to have you come up for someone that was running against Rashida Tlaib a couple of years ago, because I know what a fan you are of hers, but we couldn't get that to work out. So thank you so much for being able to take the time with me today. But you're here because you're running for Congress. But you know, put the truck in reverse. Beep, beep, beep. Before we get to that, the low down, nitty gritty, for people don't know you, where were you born, where were you raised? Where are you now? The sort of dirty details.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so you know, listen, I'm the son of Syrian immigrants. My parents escaped Syria in 66. I was born a few months after they got here and my parents were here legally. They got political asylum a few months after they got here. Born in Ohio but grew up in Wisconsin. My dad started a small practice up in Appleton, Menina area near Green Bay and went to grade school and high school there and undergrad University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin. My dad started a small practice up in Appleton, Menina area near Green Bay and went to grade school and high school there and undergrad University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Was on a medical scholarship, while with the Navy at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Unlike Jill Biden, you're an actual doctor.

Speaker 2:

Yes, sir, yes sir, Not only actual doctor but served in the Navy. Was honored to have done my internship at Bethesda Naval Hospital and was deployed on the USS El Paso as the ship doc in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia and served a little over a year there and came back to finish my residency and be chief of residence at Bethesda Naval, and my last tour was as a physician to Congress. So the attending physician's office that takes care of the members of the Supreme Court and the Senate and House is run by an admiral who was my chairman of medicine at Bethesda and he brought me over to be one of the staff physicians there for a couple of years. After that I left the Navy and joined my dad here in practice in Arizona in 99. And I've been in practice in primary care here ever since 99, running a small business called the Jasser Center for Comprehensive Care, been the head of the Arizona Medical Association for a couple of years, very active in organized medicine but also active as a bioethicist and as a reform-minded Muslim.

Speaker 2:

We formed the American Islamic Forum for Democracy after 9-11, basically saying you know, listen, we're Americans who love this country and we realized that Al-Qaeda, isis, all these alphabet soup of radical terror groups don't come out of thin air.

Speaker 2:

They're a cancer that needs to be treated within the Islamic faith. Tradition of theocracy, if you will, that needs to be defeated and really the American narrative. We've always said that the only solution to Islamism which is theocratic Islam of the Sharia Islamic State is, just like our founding fathers defeated, theocracy within Christianity. The first solution ever in history against theocracy was the American experiment in 1776 Islamic Republic of Pakistan. All these supremacist ideas are the root cause of radical Islam and you know, and if you look now, the far left is working closely with the Islamists. You see them Mamdani's, like you mentioned, rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. These don't come out of the farm team, doesn't come out of thin air. They are radicals who are working with the AOCs of the world and you know, muslims like myself, who love this country and would die for it, are really the only solution.

Speaker 1:

Before we get to your congressional stances, you authored a book. It's been now like 10 plus years. Reform, the Battle for the Soul of Islam. Talk about, since this is a Christian show, can't resist the pun. Well, genesis is in the Koran too.

Speaker 2:

So what is the genesis of that book? Muhammad in, you know, around 530 CE and ultimately that has now there was, you know. And then I think, as people look at Islam, I'm not expecting them to become experts in its history or its theology, but just to sort of give it the same trajectory in history as many faiths did, whether it be Judaism or Christianity, the faiths of the God of Abraham, if you will. Took a while, I was just debating in Oxford and I'd asked people to look at that debate from October 24, 2024, in which I was asked to debate whether Islam is compatible with democracy, and I took the side that it's not. But I said, listen, I love my faith, but having said that it's not, whether Islam can be, my prayer is that it can become compatible, but today, as it exists, it's not. And I said, if Oxford University existed in the 16th century and you were debating whether Christianity was compatible, there had not been any country anywhere in the world in which there was democracy, in which they understood what it meant in the Bible to render under Caesar what is Caesar and unto God's what is God's. Similarly, in Islam, you know, in my book I talk about the fact, in the last chapter I go through some of the translations that predominate global interpretations of Islam, and I was blessed to have a grandfather you know two grandfathers that were very heaped in Islamic intellectualism and criticism and were judges and understand as politicians and judges what needs to happen within the faith tradition. But also my father wrote a translation of the Quran that we publish and it's a translation into modern English, and these modern translations don't exist anywhere right now, besides in small. You know unknown reformers, but they exist. It's not unknown. There's, you know, fatima Mernissi, a reformist woman who's written about secular democracy in Islam. Al-ashmawi was in prison under Mubarak for decades who wrote about the need to separate mosque and state.

Speaker 2:

So these ideas exist and the battle for the soul of Islam is not about defeating the idea of the message of the prophet, but rather to say, okay, if you believe in Judeo-Christian values, is there an Islam that can share those ideas? But to defeat the concept of the establishment of religion through government. And I think that's what our founding fathers did. And you know, one of my heroes is Benjamin Rush, who was a physician that was one of the founding fathers that also has written about religious liberty, as did Jefferson, our founding father, that talked about religious liberty. And at the core, I believe, of Islamic reform is the need to protect minorities, to protect those that leave Islam, that reject Islam. And right now, the idea of the Islamic state is a cult. It is a cult where, if you leave it, you're targeted, you're killed. If you don't follow the ideas of it, you are rejected. And I was in many ways targeted in my own communities here in Arizona and elsewhere because I didn't toe the line of the political Islamists.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you said a couple things. First, I want to joke with you about being an MD to Congress and courts. I think they more need a psychologist than an MD, but as author of Terror Strikes Coming Soon to a City Near you, I like, right, people make assumptions. They make assumptions about me and my book. They make assumptions about you, which is why you're here to dispel some of these assumptions. Right, I have to screen calls, of course, because I get death threats and I get the oh, you're Islamophobic.

Speaker 1:

No, you didn't read the book. It's not just about Islamic terrorists. I talk about Tokyo, japan, aum Shrinyoko, the Supreme Truth, christian doomsday cult. Two right, terrorism is terrorism. And also, I want to get your reaction to it's not all Muslims, right, just like it wasn't all Germans. I've got a meme and I'll toss it in in post-production. Right, it's not all right if only 10 percent or even less of muslims are jizyas, as I call them global, global Islamic jihadist interim army soldiers. Right, the ultra Islamic cultist types. Well, it said only 7% of Germans were Nazis. Look how that turned out. It's a battle of Bonhoeffers within Islam, within the Muslim faith, versus the extremists, like the German comparison no, it's very similar and I will tell you, you know.

Speaker 2:

I think it's important for people to hear, though, from Muslims that that's not an excuse, right, just because a silent majority, let's say, or at least a plurality of Muslims believe like I do, it's not an excuse because they're silent. Unfortunately, they're not marching in the streets against the Islamists, unfortunately, you know. But the question is so, what? What do we do? I think we, we, we stop the bigotry of low expectations. We stop treating Muslims like they're. You know, and I mentioned this on my Oxford speech I said stop giving Muslims participation trophies. In democracy, they need to be held accountable, just like you do everybody else, for the values that they believe and espouse. And if you're going to a mosque, ask them why there's no women in the main entryways mixing with the men, why they're hidden behind curtains, why they're not on any boards, why they read from scriptural interpretations that says gays should be killed, that says people don't have a right to free speech, that you're a traitor if you don't believe in their dogma and their theocracy. So stop with the participation trophies. And I think, ultimately, like you said, studies have shown if you look at the Arab awakening, when you finally had demonstrations throughout the Middle East in 2011, 2012,. It only took 10% of the population to put those dictatorships on their heels. Where in Egypt you had 70 million people, when there was 10 to 15 million people in the streets, mubarak couldn't kill enough anymore because he was done. They couldn't. There was nobody working. Same thing in Libya and across the Middle East. Now, for every two steps forward, they took 10 steps backwards. Because there's no educational system in which they're doing liberal thinking and humanism and all the humanities. There's no products coming out of the Middle East worth anything that is competitive globally. So there needs to be another enlightenment. And the other thing I mentioned is okay.

Speaker 2:

If Islam as a recipe is poisoned, then you wouldn't have a history in which Bernard Lewis wrote about the Jews of Islam and wrote about how Maimonides did his greatest work when he was living under Islamic rule. In the 10th and 11th century, spain and the Elon Musks of the world in 8th, 9th and 10th century human history were living under Islamic rule. So were those democracies? No, they were not democracies, but there were 4,000 schools of Sharia law at that time. Now there's four in the entire planet.

Speaker 2:

So the last 1,000 years of Islamic history have been a disaster, but it's 1,400 years old and the first 400 years were actually very modern and critically based and individual based and anti-tribal. Now it's become very tribally oriented, very militaristic, backward thinking, fossilized, misogynistic, anti-semitic, western hatred all of these things that are now working hand in hand with the far left and the extremists of the Chinese and the Chinese Communist Party and all of those that hate the West. So I want to talk later about the Clarity Coalition that we formed. That's really to save the West and really how the future of the West depends upon us, because the solution is one of two things Either you put a wall around or convert all Muslims, which I don't think is a way to, is not going to work against a quarter of the world's population or you try to help them go through what the West went through, which was a modern Americanization of a constitutional republic, if you will to the Rashida Tlaibs and the Ilhan Omars.

Speaker 1:

So you're just by running, educating and helping these efforts. You had said a couple of historical references. Well, look at the United States history. Even Back then, most were still allied with the King of England, lied with the king of England. It was a small percentage of colonists that wanted independence and actually broke us free. Right A small vocal group off the tail, wagging the dog so to speak Exactly, and this is why it's important in that.

Speaker 2:

Ok, I understand there's some core doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam or others, but at the end of the day, when I was on my name, the reason I was never radicalized Joe is because the only thing in my life I'd ever die for is America. God doesn't need me to die for him. My faith doesn't need me to die for it, because it will exist with or without me. America may not. America is one generation away from losing our freedom, so that's why I?

Speaker 2:

joined the Navy and when I was on my ship, my supply officer was Mormon, my CO was Catholic, my XO was Protestant, my deck officer was Jewish, I was the doc, I was Muslim, there were atheists the only thing that brought us together. We had such faith diversity, but we would die for the country because we wanted our ship to protect our freedom and to protect our soldiers and to enact the mission of not only our military but the president and our Congress and American citizenship. So at citizenry, at the end of the day, that's what makes America succeed and that's why I'm ultimately running for office.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you. The next obvious question We've alluded to the why Specifically spell out why you're running for Congress in Arizona. For those who don't have a program may have lost track. You're running in what district in Arizona and why?

Speaker 2:

I'm running in the 4th District in Arizona and it's currently Greg Stanton is in that seat, the former Phoenix mayor, who's been missing in action, and you know the list of problems that he has are just horrific. I mean, the best example of how out of touch he is with voters is he was on his boat voting from a tourist type boat when the rest of us were under lockdown and COVID, and that's the typical, you know, scenario in which Greg Stanton was representing. And now he's running the DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the district is a swing district. It should have a Republican in it, especially with the red wave that we had that began with the Trump movement and is going to continue into 26 as we see all of the great things happening. But the reason I'm running for our district and in Arizona is there are many challenges facing our country and you know the people of Arizona deserve better representation and we deserve to continue what President Trump and so many others have started and get a better majority in Congress so that it's not as locked down as it is right now with a hair-thin majority. And you know you look at the challenges, whether it's the cost of living, the difficulty in buying a home. I see you know things that can be done legislatively, where right now you have foreign entities like China and else buying homes in cash out from under our citizens because of the inability to the first time buyers is lower than it's ever been, and President Trump is right to be really upset with the Federal Reserve for not lowering the rates and continuing the higher rates because it's preventing our citizens from being able to buy homes.

Speaker 2:

Healthcare, I can tell you I was one of the few docs nationally, let alone in our state, to speak out against the lockdowns, which I thought reminded me of what my grandparents were telling me about Syria. And yet what's happening in this country in the name of one disease, one virus, while my patients were at home having heart attacks, bowel obstructions, not going to the emergency room, not going to the emergency room. So we were disease trading in order to shave some you know numbers off of who were dying from a virus, while right now we're seeing mental health crises and so many other things. My kids were being forced to stay out of school at home because why they weren't even suffering from COVID. The kids were not getting COVID and yet the authoritarian nature of the left that was running a lot of what was happening used the pandemic to take away the rights of citizens and, as a physician, I think I'm very well suited to be able to not only counter that but begin to bring back diversity and real choice in health care, where patients were told they could keep their doctor in Obamacare and they can't.

Speaker 2:

You're seeing consolidation in healthcare, where the cost of healthcare it's 20 plus percent of our GDP and I can tell you that one of the number one things my patients complain about is being able to get to see their docs, getting the value that they pay for in healthcare. I mean, essentially, health care system has been socialized and the government is basically the major insurance companies that have dominated and destroyed, I think, a lot of what is health care today in America. And those are just two of the issues. And then strengthening our border, as the president has so skillfully done to continue that and give legislative protections to what he has enacted through the White House in the last few months alone.

Speaker 1:

Three things. You see me furiously writing notes. Right One regarding your opponent and you said what he was doing rules for us, not for him, during the lockdown. Like Gavin Gruscombe at the French Laundry while everybody else is like here in Michigan. To relate this to others across the country, not just Arizona Wretched Wittler visiting family in Florida while we're all locked down here and her husband taking a boat out on Lake Michigan while we're all locked down here. So, yeah, the usual hypocrisy rules for everybody else, but never them.

Speaker 1:

You quoted Reagan. We are but one generation away. So I throw back to Reagan and, like you said, the need to increase the majority. People forget Reagan never in his eight years had control of the House, never Two years. Slim majority control of the Senate, slim majority control of the Senate. Imagine how much he could have got done had he had a GOP House and Senate his eight years. And we cannot let Trump lose control of the House or the Senate and, as you said, increase the majorities so we can get more done less EOs, more official legislation through Congress. And you mentioned diversity. E pluribus unum, my friend, we are the most diverse and inclusive nation on this entire bleeping planet already. E pluribus unum, yes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's you know. I've got the background, the service. I've rolled up my sleeves, I have taken on the biggest establishments in the planet, which includes organized Islam, and the healthcare system, which, as an insurgent within the organized medical community, I've taken on wokeism and the you know, dei initiatives that have really, I think, ruined a lot of the quality in medicine, because it is no longer about meritocracy but really simply about identity politics. And not even, you know, as a son of immigrants, I appreciate diversity ethnically more than you know anyone can say. And yet I appreciate diversity ethnically more than anyone can say. And yet I also understand that what makes America great is our meritocracy, is that we want people to be lifted up. Our rising tide raises all boats. It has to be about the most successful, the people we choose with our feet, with our pocketbooks, et cetera, not the ones that get forced down us because of certain programs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, JFK understood the rising tides thing. That's why the JFK tax cuts, slashing from 90 percent tax rate way down, tax rate way down. Jfk was a conservative, for the most part Democrat. They don't exist anymore, right, JFK, Reagan, GW, Trump's first term tax cuts through the Laffer curve, I know you understand results in more revenue to the Treasury, not left. And indeed that rising tide lifts our boat and again DEI is actually taking us backwards. Mlk Jr progressed us. Dei is taking us back and reversing us from e pluribus unum dream. And I want to ask, before I forget do you have or do you foresee a primary opponent, or are you able run now right through to the general November 2026 unopposed in the party?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there have been a number of folks that have written letters of intent, but I'm the only one that's declared at this time. Last time there were three other opponents and I lost by a few percentage points and the other candidate that defeated me all the candidates had run multiple times. I was the only first time candidate. So you know I think we've got a lot of momentum, that we've got only tailwinds now and no headwinds. So we're hoping you know to continue to show that the best thing for this district is to unite behind my candidacy and then be able to take it to Greg Stanton, who has been there for way too long. He's never had a real challenger, his real you know what he has really done for the district has been if you look at every you know talk about Reagan every 80-20 issue. You know our 80% friend is not our 20% enemy.

Speaker 2:

Greg Stanton has been on the 20% side of every 80-20 issue. He has voted against the rights of women to not have men in their sports. He has voted against the greatest tax cut recently by voting against the big, beautiful bill and a number of other areas in which he has, over and over again, proven that he doesn't care about the majority in our district, the 80% that support so many things that would free up their pocketbooks to be able to take care of their families, to buy their homes, to have freedom. No, or security or the border. He has gone down to the border to defend criminals who broke the law to come into the state instead of defending our citizens, like my parents, that came here legally and waited in line and got asylum or whatever process. So he really is not representative of the state and, you know, hopefully we can devote our resources beyond the primary into the general. Send him home.

Speaker 1:

Right now that this is an important thing, and you mentioned momentum. I've run for office before myself is an important thing, and you mentioned momentum. I I've run for office before myself right. Run once and if you lose it doesn't mean a death sentence. Drop out, you're never going to get it. No, no, as you said the last time your other previous opponents had run before and lost the. The one you lost to in the primary last time was a previous run. You build up a base that you can then build on running that second time. It's not a negative thing. I've supported many candidates that have run and lost and running again a second time because you do have an extra momentum. I do often say to people like there's a friend of mine that's run for Congress four times, like after the first two, third time's the charm. No, third time, give it up, but right.

Speaker 2:

And I'll tell you I think I'm the right candidate at the right time and the right place. This is a district that I've worked in and I know and I love, and over half my patients are from the district, and I will tell you that this is the right cycle, that you know this is a seat that we can flip to increase the majority in Congress of conservatives and you know I'm not only a physician that's been taking care of the community, but a veteran. I understand the concerns of veterans and people that serve in our military and the honor that they deserve and also as a fighter. They want somebody in Washington. Our, our, our constituents, our citizens in my district want somebody in Washington that can fight for them and I've been proven over and over through not only domestic establishment organizations like healthcare system, but globally. I can fight and I will not back down from any fight.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm having a mental block on her name, the swimmer. Is it Riley Green? Yeah, riley Gaines, riley Gaines. Okay, I knew I was getting it. Riley Gaines, riley Gaines, riley Gaines. Okay, I knew I was getting it. Riley Gaines. I've met her a few times. She was here campaigning for Tudor Dixon last cycle, so I got to meet her. Any chance she'll be with you to help you regarding the women's issues. Protecting women in sport.

Speaker 2:

Well, we'd love to, We'd love to engage her. She's fantastic and just such a hero and so courageous People of courage. I could not tell you how important it is for us to work with them. I've been endorsed by Hugh Hewitt and Charlie Kirk and Mark Levin and so many others last cycle and Charlie's going to support me this time and we would love to reach out to Riley and hopefully we can do that.

Speaker 1:

You read my mind where I was exactly going with that endorsement. You were, you know. See, this guy knows what he's doing. You know. He knew right where I was going next and just went there anyway, went there anyway. So so yeah, I don't like to do too long a show, because I call it today's twitter attention span right. Everybody wants the condensed version too long and people tune out, so let's do. You have a website I'm sure you do where people can reach out to you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, please go to Z4AZ, z, digit 4, a-z or Z-F-O-R-A-Zcom and you can see what our priorities are and everything about our campaign and pitch in. You know, obviously you can't win a campaign unless you've got the fuel to do it, so we'd love to get as much support as we can from all over the country.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely yeah, z4azcom, or me being in Detroit. Some of my support too, those who use zed instead of z, z for a zcom. Thank you, dr Zutty. High definition guy. Jazzer, not jazzer, he doesn't own a coronet. For your time. Good luck. You certainly have my support and this show's endorsement. Uh, for what little it's worth me being in michigan, you being in arizona, I'm sure it doesn't carry a whole lot of weight there, but I'm happy to have you on and help you get your word out. Wrapping things up, any closing statement closing remarks.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you for all you do, and you know this is just. I'm just one piece of the puzzle of a great America that gave my family freedom to be who we want to be, to make the choices we want, build small businesses and give back. And you know, part of our legacy work is giving back to this country all that it gave us. And as I've got kids now, you know, either entering college or leaving college or already in the workforce you know I can tell you that we want to hand over to the next generation a country better than we found it. And had President Trump not won, had conservatives not been able to get back in, you know, in a little more influence in Washington, I was worried that we weren't going to do that, but I think we're headed in the right direction and I think flipping seats, like we have here, is one way to do that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we need to increase that margin because you know, I'm not rah, rah, rah for anyone with an R next to their name. I'm not rah, rah, rah for anyone with an R next to their name. I fight the CNOs conservatives in name only and the rhinos CNOs are just another form of rhino as hard as I do the kamifashi sociocrats. I like to say right, improve the margin of real conservative Republicans like you that understand history, not trying to undo all our history. 100%.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you for all you do and thanks for having me back. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

All right, take care, god bless, god bless. Thank you for having tuned in for Chris D'Attusel's Politics Show. If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, terror Strikes, coming soon to a city near you, available anywhere books are sold. If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you. And let me remind, over time the fancy high production items will come. But for now, for starters, it's just you, as a very appreciated listener by me. All substance, no fluff, just straight to key discussion points. A show that looks at a variety of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian, us constitutionalist lens. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Take care, god bless. Like and subscribe to Constitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help.

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