lam i am lewis vaughanjones with bbc news. a top stories... meeting called by president trump to discuss the budget dispute that has led to a partial government shutdown has broken up without agreement. as they left the white house, republican and democrat congressional leaders accused one another of intransigence and being the cause of the dispute. mrtrump has and being the cause of the dispute. mr trump has demanded five billion dollars for a border war with mexico. apple has said that its sales figures will be sharply lower than expected. the company said it had not foreseen the scale of the economic slowdown in some emerging markets, particularly china. and this video is delighting people all over the world. two giant panda cubs have been practising learning to drink from a ball and eat bamboo shoots. this is bbc news. now, it is time for one of

hardtalk‘s highlights of 2018. zeinab badawi speaks to act, comedian and disability advocates, maysoon zayid. welcome to hardtalk, with me, zeinab badawi. my guest today is funny. she's a comedian, actor and a disability advocate. she was born in the united states to palestinian immigrant parents. and since birth has been living with cerebral palsy, a condition which affects the brain and nervous system. maysoon zayid believes comedy has the power to transform the lives of disabled people. she also says her standup comedy shows help normalise the perceptions of muslims, when many seek to demonize them. can comedy really do all that? and where do you draw the line between what's funny and what's unacceptable? theme music plays maysoon zayid, welcome to hardtalk.

thank you so much for having me. i really want to shake your hand but i shake too much to shake. laughs i will consider it done. maysoon zayid, you've said if there were an 0ppression 0lympics, you would win the gold medal. yes. why do you say that? i would definitely win the gold medal because i'm palestinian, i'm muslim, i'm a woman of colour, i'm disabled, and i live in donald trump's america. you don't get more oppressed than that. we'll come to donald trump's america perhaps a little bit later. butjust explain to us, what does it mean to have cerebral palsy? so in my case, my cerebral palsy

was as a result of doctor error. the doctor who delivered me was drunk, and so now i appear to be drunk for my entire life, even when i'm sober. in my case, my cp makes me shake all the time and it affects my co—ordination. it'a a neurological disorder that affects muscle co—ordination, but it exhibits differently in different people with cp. and you have said, however, "i have 99 problems and cerebral palsy is just one of them" — have you always had such a positive attitude towards your condition and where does that come from? i have always had a positive attitude towards my condition because i was raised as an equal by my parents. my parents acknowledged my disability, they accommodated my disability, but they didn't focus on it. so whatever my sisters had to do, i had to do. if my sisters were cleaning, i was going to be cleaning. if they went to public school, my parents fought and made sure that i too could go

to public school. and when i was born, the doctors told my parents that i would never walk. now, this is something really important. there's no shame in not walking, there's no shame in using a wheelchair, or a walker, or a cane, and sometimes people use the word "wheelchair—bound" but that term is incorrect. mobility devices free people. but when i was growing up, my father was aware that i'd be spending time in two separate worlds — in america and also in the west bank. so he was determined to teach me how to walk and he did. so you derive that kind of positive attitude from your very close—knit palestinian family, in particular your late father? yes... it was he who encouraged you, was it? my father encouraged me and my mother strengthened me. my mother's a tiger mum. so she showed no mercy. the other day i was on tv, i called my mum, i said, "what did you think?" she said, "your hair looked terrible", and it did and i was glad she told me because i learnt for the next time.

my father was my cheerleader. and he had a mantra and his mantra was "you can do it, yes you can can" and he really believed that i could do anything i dreamt of, and encouraged me to take chances and also to accept when i could not. you've spoken of how you would walk on your father's feet so that you could learn how to walk, and he'd be dangling a dollar note before you, in order to entice you into walking as much as possible. i mean, that is just one small example of how you do make jokes about having cerebral palsy... and also how he approached it in a fun way. you know, i always say, i walked miles on my father's shoes, but the dollar bill was really what worked the best for me because my inner stripper was so strong that i was running in stilettos by kindergarten. but do you think that, you know, that kind of approach, talking about it in that way perhaps might to some people strike them

as though you're making light of something which after all is quite serious and is restricting for many people because of the way society deals with people with disabilities? i think that talking about my disability honestly and with humour, makes it more accessible and less frightening for people, and i think that applies to people with disabilities and also to caretakers and parents. i think it's so important that we destigmatise disability. my disability is visible but there's also so many invisible disabilities. and the stigma around disability is real. when someone is pregnant, the very first thing people tell them is "i hope it's healthy". we don't acknowledge the fact that there's a chance that it won't be. and what i want is for people to see that, regardless of what disability a person has, they still have potential, they can still have joy, they can still have love. i often say, people think of people with disabilities as happy smowflake angel

babies, that never grow up and don't get married and don't have kids — and we have the potential to live full lives, whether we're verbal, non—verbal, mobile, not mobile. and i think that by approaching my disability the way i would any of my other 99 problems, it empowers people to be loud and proud about their disability and to not fear disability in others. but when you saw your more able bodied sisters and you saw how you perhaps couldn't do everything that they could, did you feel in any way angry or frustrated at any time? i didn't really feel otherised or disabled until i got to college, until i finished high school because, in addition to my family, my friends were very supportive. i've had the same best friends since i was five years old. you were in a mainstream school and that for you is very important? yes, my parents had to fight for me to be in a mainstream school. when i went to start school,

they wanted to send me to a special school for children with down syndrome. and my parents fought to have me mainstreamed. i believe that if they hadn't fought for my education, i wouldn't be sitting here on hardtalk with you right now. and i think that one of the most important things in the world is to make sure that children with disabilities worldwide... including those with down syndrome? including those with down syndrome, non—verbal, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities — we all have a right to education and, sure, not everyone is going to be a heart surgeon — i certainly don't have the co—ordination — but we need to give people the potential to learn. but, as i said, you've made a living from being a stand—up comedian and making jokes about your disabilities, one of yourjokes is the one about the car park. i say that most people have dreamt of being disabled at some point in their life, because if you come on a journey with me, and it's christmas eve, and you're driving around looking for parking.

what do you see? 16 empty handicapped spaces and you wish to yourself, can ijust be a little disabled like bonspurs or something? but also, there's a flipside to that. i always use the disabled parking and some people don't realise that i'm disabled, so we have to understand that disability does not all look the same in every person. sure, but i mean, makingjokes like that, it takes a lot of skill to take on what for some people is a bit of a taboo subject. where do you draw the line between humour and what ends up just making fun of somebody with disabilities, mocking them almost? i tell personal stories and because i'm telling a personal story, i don't believe that there's a line that i can cross. comedy is taking risks. comedy, you're always pushing that line. where is that line?

is it where you say yourjokes might encourage somebody to mock a person with disabilities? the line that i draw is that i don't find humour in cruelty, so i've stopped using words that are painful to people, i've stopped mocking things that hurt people, because i want my audience to be happy and to laugh, i don't want to invoke their darkest memories, i don't want to invoke traumas and abuse and pain. and it's not censorship. it's always putting my audience first — i want them to laugh. because, i tell you, the british comedy actor, ricky gervais, who's made jokes about a dead baby, says, "outside actually breaking the law or causing someone actual physical harm, hurting someone‘s feelings is almost impossible to objectively quantify" — do you agree with that? i absolutely agree with that. and i did several dead baby jokes on tour in belgium because i do believe that context matters, that anything can be funny, and that comedy is subjective. when i say that i make choices,

i make choices because i don't find being abusive funny, but if someone else can take something super traumatic and make it funny, it's their right to do so and try so. do you think you have more of a right, in a way, to make comedy about people with disabilities because you are somebody with disabilities yourself? imean, for example, the late american comedian, joan rivers, made jokes about the holocaust and she said, "that's ok because i'm jewish", she said. i feel the same way about disability. i don't find it entertaining or humorous when comedians who don't have disabilities mock disabilities or imitate disabilities. disability is part of who i am, it's my community... so it gives you a right? and it give me... you can go further than... it gives me a right. it gives me the same right that a person of colour has a right to talk about being

a person of colour. and having a disability, it gives me the right to talk about it. but i never pretend that disability is a monolith. i can talk about physical disability, but i have no right to go on stage and mock an intellectual disability just because i happen to be disabled. i think the fact that i have a personal connection allows me to talk about it in a way that others shouldn't, honestly. you have actually ended up, on social media, being the object of bullying. you've been called "gumby mouthed" and other things. i mean, that's the kind of risk you run, isn't it? i've been subjected to a lot of bullying online. in the past two years, i've been subjected to death threats. and i often talk to the guys that do comedy with me, and i ask them, "do you get threats like i do?" and they never do. they have people saying that they want to punch them. i have people saying, "i'm going to rape you so that your father honour kills you." so it's a deep, deep frightening world out there, but i refused to be silenced. and the reason why i refuse to be

silenced is, while i was subjected to bullying, i talked about it in my ted talk, when i did, i had women, teens, girls, worldwide reach out to me and say "i've been bullied", "i've had fear, and knowing that you survived it gives me the power to survive it too." and you respond to them, don't you, sometimes? why notjust ignore them? well, i'm a comedian, and we grew up in comedy clubs being heckled and when someone heckles you, you have to take them down, it's a natural instinct. so i have a process and my process is, first, i try to educate, because you wouldn't believe how many people are genuinely ignorant. if they fail to learn, then i mock them. i love getting a good joke in. but you get upset by it, you are upset too by the bullying? i'm upset by the death threats, i'm disturbed by the bullying. the bullying doesn't make me go

on screen and be self conscious about my wiggling lip, or the fact i slur a bit. the bullying makes me go on screen and go, "i'm on tv and you're not, darling. watch me." it kind of empowers me, even though i could live without it. but death threats scare me. but you don't think to yourself at any time, i wish i hadn't sought such a high—profile, or do you just accept that's part of the price you have to pay? i think that if i had grown up with social media, i would never have stepped foot on television, but now it's my destiny and i'm not going to let anyone take me down. but why not just forget your disabilities and carry on, you know, leading your life? i mean i tell you what one british comedian, francesca martinez, has said about her cerebral palsy, she says, "i've accepted my cerebral palsy. i'd wasted years worrying about the way i walked or talked." she says she's no longer defined by cerebral palsy. she says, "a quick look outside my own tiny world was enough for me to feel guilty. millions of others live in war and poverty, and without clean water, food or shelter." disability‘s not a monolith. cerebral palsy doesn't define me, but it's a huge part of who i am. i accept it, but it's a part

of my story and i'm happy to include it in my comedy because it's part of who i am. it's a real thing. i want to take a drink of water right now, i can't. i need a straw. that's a reality. pretending that it's not a reality does nothing to lessen its impact on my life. you went to arizona state university and you studied drama there and you've said how you were very disappointed when there was a role in a drama which needed somebody with cerebral palsy and they cast an able—bodied person in the role. so, i was a straight—a student in theatre. i knew that i had talent, i knew that i was a good actress and i knew that i wasn't getting cast, but i couldn't figure out why. so, senior year when they had a story about a girl with cerebral palsy, i was like, i was literally born to play this! and then i didn't get the role,

and when i asked why, they said it was because i couldn't do the stunts. the reality was the university was reflecting hollywood, hollywood shuns people with disabilities. we are by far the largest minority in the world. we're 20% of the population and we're only 2% of the images you see on american television. of those 2%, 95% are played by non—disabled actors. a lot of us in the disability community, which is kind of led by me, i'm kind of the queen of us, find it very, very offensive to play a visible disability on screen. we think of it like race. it's not something that you can act. when someone plays cerebral palsy and they are twitching and flailing about, that's not what the disability is and it's offensive, it's inauthentic and it takes away our opportunities. so, as well as being someone

with a disability, you're also an arab american, and another way you've tried to use your comedy is to try to normalise the perceptions of muslims when many are really seeking to demonise them. in 2003, you co—founded the new york arab american comedy festival, you travelled all over the world to showcase the talents of arab americans right across the entertainment industry. do you feel that arabs or muslims in the entertainment industry are also getting a raw deal? yeah. i mean, starting off with arabs, right, because arab and muslim isn't synonymous. arabs were trailblazers in american comedy. we had danny thomas and jamie farr. we were these great comedic figures. post 9/11, we became caricatures of terrorists and nothing more and so that was something that i was really concerned about shifting and giving arabs the opportunity to be seen on screen as something other than a taxidriver or a terrorist. but also, being a person of colour is a challenge and arab

is considered a person of colour, so you have to break through that barrier. but...i was going to say, couldn't it be an advantage? 0ne arab actor said recently that when he complained about being depicted as a terrorist and saying that this was racial profiling, he was told, "you're lucky and you can use your ethnicity as a play card in an industry where white actors are overlooked." it can be an advantage, can't it? that's an obscene comment, that people even consider that being a minority in hollywood is a good thing. it's not. we're still completely outnumbered. but you do quite well. it's notjust...i mean 0mar sharif, the late 0mar sharif, there's selma hayek, who's got arab heritage, there's wendie malick, tony shalhoub, rami malek won an emmy for the thriller mr robot. i mean, there are some who've made their names. so, rami malek was put on screen by an arab. wendie and tony, definitely trailblazers. people break through no matter who they are.

there are always exceptions to the rule. but the reality is i certainly haven't been given that opportunity. i had to write my own tv show to get on television. i have a deal from my own sitcom called if i can can with universal studios. i can't even get a guest role to practice before i star in my own show. that's how much discrimination there is. so, when we have breakthrough stars, when we have people who defy the odds, it's because they defy the odds. it's not because there are genuinely more opportunities for minorities than white people on television, especially with disability. you said arab and muslim of course are not synonymous, and you're absolutely right, of course, but when it comes to the way muslims are perceived, the american actor samuel ljackson on muslims in hollywood says,

"young muslim americans need to start telling their stories in the same way that african—americans fought and found ways to make films about their lives and experiences." do you see people doing that? is it happening? i do. i absolutely see people doing that and i'm one of the people who is doing that. and i think i have a real privilege, as a muslim, because as a muslim woman, i am not what people picture when they think of a muslim woman, but i represent a lot of other muslim women. not every muslim woman chooses to cover. most muslim women are not being oppressed in america, where i live and where i grew up. so, i think it's a great opportunity for me to have written a show with a muslim family as a centrepiece, where the father is devout, the mother is a doctor who doesn't believe in god, to show that muslims are again not a monolith. we are not all these one—note screaming terrorists that we're depicted as on television,

that muslim women do look like me, that you can be devout, you can have faith, and still live 100% acclimated to the american lifestyle. and i think right now, they are trying to otherise us. they think we are born somewhere else. so, people often say to me, go back to your own country, and i say, "where, newjersey?" or they tell me i need to accept jesus and i say i do, "he is a prophet in islam. can you accept he looks like me, not you?" despite your initial comment very early on about living in donald trump's america, when you look at all the opinion polls, arab americans, not necessarily muslim americans, are actually quite well integrated as us citizens. when you look at the indices, they're better off than the average person in the population, they've got high education achievements and that sort of thing. so, it's not all bad, is it? no, it's not all bad and, again, arab is not a monolith,

some of us are more integrated, some are less, but also, 80% of arab americans are christian and that has an impact on their ability to blend in to society. so, you see the problem is more of a muslim one than an arab one? currently, i see it as much more as a muslim one, and that's different to a decade ago. right now, it is absolutely terrifying to be muslim in america. why? we're under siege every day. hate against muslims is mainstream. courts agree with hate against muslims and we're not really given a voice to combat the negative images that are being displayed of us. do you experience it personally yourself? every single day. this anti—muslim sentiment? i feel the anti—muslim sentiment every single day. in what way? i was living in the new york area post 9/11 and i never felt this kind of hate and backlash and dehumanisation.

i mean, first of all, i do find it very disturbing that an american president can invoke and incite violence against muslims without any ramifications. he wouldn't say that, hejust says... are you referring to the videos that he... i'm referring to the rhetoric and the videos. i mean, he would just say, "i am stating facts, that there's a problem with terrorism that is committed by people of the muslim faith and i'm just stating facts." that's what he said. but he's not actually stating facts. as someone who's watching it, i know that he is inciting violence against me. i know that he's ignoring the true dangers in america. i mean, in las vegas, 600 people were shot. that's a true risk. finally, you go to the palestinian territories, you've worked with refugees, bringing comedy as a kind of therapy to change people's lives. you've talked about how you use comedy for people with disabilities,

or about people with disabilities, muslim americans, that kind of thing. does comedy really have the power to do all that, to transform lives and attitudes in society? comedy absolutely has the power to transform lives. i always say if someone‘s laughing at you, they're less likely to kill you, but also, if someone‘s laughing, they're more likely to understand something that they never understood before. because there's a difference between lecturing a person or yelling at a person for saying something ignorant and getting on stage, doing a joke and having them realise, "0h—oh, i'm the bigot, i'm the one that didn't know the facts. i'm the one thatjudged them all. this woman is a muslim and, clearly, there's no reason for me to hate her, so maybe there's more like her." when i do it worldwide, it's less about islam and more about the disability, because when i do comedy worldwide, i'm putting out an image a lot of people have never seen — a functional, independent

disabled person. and it lets them know they have the potential, or their child has the potential to excel in the same way that i have. maysoon zayid, thank you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. you are so welcome. and by the way, zeinab, if i can can, you can can! good morning. well, we've certainly been chasing cloud amounts around the country at the moment, but my new year's resolution was to stay on the optimistic side with a glass half full. so, for the next few days, yes, it will stay chilly, but i'm optimistic that we'll see

a little more in the way of sunshine coming through. but frost and freezing fog patches could be an issue first thing in the morning. now, the uk is sandwiched right in the middle between this mild air sitting out in the atlantique and colder air across eastern europe at the moment. there is an area of high pressure across the uk and circulating around the high, the wind direction always driving in a little more cloud close to the coasts. so, just come further inland, that's that we'll see the clearest of the skies. that's where we're likely to be the best of the sunshine as well. now, if you're up and off early on this morning, it's going to be a chilly start, as you can see right through the spine of the country, really. the blue tones denoting those temperatures below freezing. well below freezing in some places. it may be as low as —5 and —6 degrees in more rural spots. so, it's going to be a cold and a frosty start to thursday morning. that's where the best slice of the sunshine is likely to be, though, along those east coasts. we'll have more cloud just driving in. and with a south—westerly flow out to the west as well,

a little more cloud and a little more moisture, and there, we could see the problem with some fog forming a little later on. top temperatures, though, for thursday afternoon — 3 to 7 degrees the high. now, as we go into the evening hours, that's when we could potentially see some freezing fog forming. if that happens, it may well be slow to clear away. but the real cold air and the stormy weather at the moment is across eastern europe. we've seen some heavy rain and even snow at lower levels across greece and turkey at the moment, and that bitterly cold air is sitting not only across the south—east mediterranean, but it's moving all the way up generally through eastern europe over the next few days. the yellow tones — i'm not going to say mild, but something a little less cold across portugal, spain, france and the uk. but if we get some freezing fog first thing on friday morning, it may be slow to clear away, and that could have quite an impact on the temperatures. so, again, there will be some sunshine around after a cold and frosty start on friday.

if the freezing fog lingers, and favoured spots for that are going to be central and southern england, well, then, those temperatures only at around 3 or 4 degrees. a little mild the further west we go. this quiet theme of weather looks likely to continue into the weekend. 0n the whole, it will be largely dry, but, again, we're going to be chasing cloud amounts around. take care. you're watching newsday on the bbc. i'm rico hizon in singapore. the headlines: the latest attempt to halt the us government shutdown ends without agreement, and both sides blaming each other. apple shares fall, as it warns that disappointing sales in china have made a big dent in its revenues. i'm lewis vaughanjones in london. also in the programme: 0ne giant leap for china's space programme, as it prepares to land a probe on the far side of the moon. times 550...

429,000. and we meet the ten—year—old south african boy who's been nicknamed the "human calculator".