--- description: The Jon Stewart of Egypt title: Bassem Youssef: The World's 100 Most Influential People | TIME.com image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6e2f53de749d847f/6998ce97a97fc00882a75321/2013_time100_youssef.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 18, 2013 # Bassem Youssef Satirist, 39 by [Jon Stewart](/author/jon-stewart/) ## Jon Stewart Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Coucla Refaat My job is hard. I have to sift through pages of political- and media-themed satirical material from exceptional writers and figure out what amusing face I can make to accompany each jab. Then I must perform them, 22 minutes a day, four days a week, with only our caterer’s spread to sustain me. Bassem Youssef does my job in Egypt. The only real difference between him and me is that he performs his satire in a country still testing the limits of its hard-earned freedom, where those who speak out against the powerful still have much to fear. Yet even under these difficult circumstances, he manages to produce an incredible show: a hilarious blend of mimicry, confusion, outrage and bemusement, highlighting the absurdities and hypocrisies of his country’s rebirth, all wielded with the precision of a scalpel, which, by the way, he should know how to wield because he’s a former heart surgeon. Yeah. And his family is beautiful and he’s a kind and generous friend. I am an American satirist, and Bassem Youssef is my hero. _Stewart is the anchor of_ The Daily Show ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/the-2013-time-100/7374447/bassem-youssef/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/the-2013-time-100/7374447/bassem-youssef/"},"headline":"Bassem Youssef: The World's 100 Most Influential People | TIME.com","datePublished":"2013-04-18T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T22:58:02.549Z","description":"The Jon Stewart of Egypt","url":"https://time.com/collections/the-2013-time-100/7374447/bassem-youssef/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6e2f53de749d847f/6998ce97a97fc00882a75321/2013_time100_youssef.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jon Stewart","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jon-stewart/"}],"creator":"Jon Stewart","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6e2f53de749d847f/6998ce97a97fc00882a75321/2013_time100_youssef.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/the-2013-time-100/7374447/bassem-youssef/","name":"Bassem Youssef: The World's 100 Most Influential People | TIME.com"}}]}] ```