I listened to his podcast trying to spin this into him controlling the interview etc
Nope.
He got played and he STILL doesn't know how.
They did what all magicians and sleight of hand artists do. The focus his attention on one thing while they did something entirely different that their "mark" didn't see or think of.
Their goal was accomplished by sticking him up there, having a Muslim sounding name, and labeling him a leftist and. BLack Lives Matter activist. The "interview " was the distraction.
He went in there looking hard and focusing on the interview like a "mark" staring at a magician's hat looking for the rabbit, while the rabbit is already in the magician's coat.
And he STILL has no idea why they really had him on there.
They were done with him after they announced his name and did their visual propaganda. Like all people fooled by magicians he's still looking at that old hat