Mehdi Hasan | |
|---|---|
_(edited).jpg) Hasan in 2023 | |
| Born | Mehdi Raza Hasan (1979-07-10)10 July 1979 (age 46) |
| Citizenship |
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| Education | Merchant Taylors' School |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford (BA) |
| Occupations |
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| Organisations | |
| Known for | Zeteo |
| Notable work |
|
| Television | The Café,Head to Head,UpFront,The Mehdi Hasan Show |
| Children | 2 |
Mehdi Raza Hasan[a] (born 10 July 1979) is a British-American broadcaster, journalist, and founder of the media companyZeteo. He presentedThe Mehdi Hasan Show onPeacock from October 2020 and onMSNBC from February 2021 until the show's cancellation in November 2023.
A graduate ofChrist Church, Oxford, Hasan began his television career as a researcher and then producer onITV'sJonathan Dimbleby programme. Following a stint on theBBC'sThe Politics Show, he became deputy executive producer onSky's breakfast showSunrise before moving toChannel 4 as their editor of news and current affairs. In 2009, he was appointed senior editor for politics at theNew Statesman. In 2012, he became a presenter onAl Jazeera English, and in 2015, he moved to Washington, D.C., to work full-time forAl Jazeera onUpFront and host theDeconstructed podcast produced by the online publicationThe Intercept from 2018 to 2020.
Hasan is the author ofWin Every Argument and the co-author of abiography of formerLabour Party leaderEd Miliband. He was formerly the political editor of the UK edition ofThe Huffington Post and the presenter of the Al Jazeera English showsThe Café,Head to Head andUpFront. After departing MSNBC, Hasan joinedThe Guardian as acolumnist and created the digital media companyZeteo in February 2024, and returned as host ofHead to Head in June that year.
Hasan was born on 10 July 1979[1][2] inSwindon,Wiltshire, inSouth West England toShia Muslim parents fromHyderabad inTelangana, Southern India,[3][4][5] his mother a doctor and his father an engineer. Hasan grew up inHarrow, an area of outer North West London.[6][7]
Hasan was privately educated atMerchant Taylors' School, an independent day school for boys at Sandy Lodge, in theThree Rivers District ofHertfordshire, nearNorthwood in North West London.[8] Hasan and British actor and rapperRiz Ahmed were classmates.[9]
Hasan then went up toChrist Church,University of Oxford, graduating in 2000 with aBachelor of Arts (BA) degree inPhilosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).[8]
Hasan worked as a researcher and then producer onITV'sJonathan Dimbleby programme,[10] with a brief period in between onBBC One'sThe Politics Show.[10] Following this, he became deputy executive producer onSky's breakfast showSunrise[10] before moving toChannel 4 as their editor of news and current affairs.[11] He was appointed senior editor for politics at theNew Statesman in late spring of 2009,[12] where he stayed until May 2012, then becoming political director ofThe Huffington Post website.[11][13]
Hasan became a presenter onAl Jazeera's English news channel in May 2012.[14] Hasan has appeared (six times) on the BBC'sQuestion Time programme,[15] and the Sunday morning programmesThe Big Questions[16] andSunday Morning Live.[17] In October 2013 onQuestion Time, Hasan called theDaily Mail "immigrant-bashing, woman-hating, Muslim-smearing, NHS-undermining, [and] gay-baiting". The newspaper responded by printing an e-mail he had sent them in 2010, in which he asked for a column and praised several of their viewpoints. Hasan said the "sycophantic" letter was his writing but criticised the newspaper's decision to publish it.[18][19]
In 2013, Hasan took part in a debate at theOxford Union to consider whetherIslam is a peaceful religion. Hasan, who is aTwelver Shia Muslim, vouched for Islam as areligion of peace, citing political and cultural reasons for violence in Muslim majority countries, as opposed to holding the religion of Islam responsible. In the vote on the motion, the house affirmed with Hasan and the other proposers that Islam is a religion of peace with 286 votes in favor and 168 votes against.[20] In March 2015, Hasan appeared in aGuardian opinion video on UK immigration.[21] Recorded at the Oxford Union,Head to Head was a programme on Al Jazeera English in which Hasan interviewed public figures;[22][23][24] it had run for three series by December 2014. Since 2015, working full-time for the network in Washington, D.C., Hasan has hosted a weekly interview and discussion programme.[24]
Hasan began a podcast in 2018 entitledDeconstructed, produced by theinvestigative journalism websiteThe Intercept.[25] On air, Hasan would discuss recent news topics and host guests. Notable topics covered on the podcast includepolice brutality, inequality,QAnon, andDonald Trump'sactivity on Twitter. Notable podcast guests have includedNoam Chomsky,Ilhan Omar, andBernie Sanders. On 2 October 2020, Hasan announced that he would no longer host the show as part of his move to hostThe Mehdi Hasan Show onNBC's new streaming service,Peacock.[25]
Hasan hostedThe Mehdi Hasan Show[26] on the online service Peacock since October 2020 airing weeknights at 7 pmEastern.[27] Notable guests onThe Mehdi Hasan Show have includedMark Ruffalo,Jon Stewart,John Bolton,Keith Ellison,Ro Khanna,John Legend, andAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In March 2021, Hasan launched the same show onMSNBC every Sunday evening.[28][29] He was also the fill-in host on MSNBC'sAll In with Chris Hayes,The Rachel Maddow Show,The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle andThe Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.[citation needed]
During theGaza war, MSNBC cancelled Hasan's show.[30] NBC stated the change was coincidental and not due to the host's religion.[31][32] Eric Bazail-Eimil ofPolitico noted, the decision made by the network "in favor of more straight news coverage of the conflict".[33] On 30 November 2023, it was announced that Hasan's MSNBC and Peacock shows would end.[34][35][36] Hasan announced at the end of his final show on 7 January 2024 that he had decided to leave the network.[37][38] Hasan joinedThe Guardian as a regular columnist in February.[39][40]
Forbes interviewed Hasan in February 2024 when the websiteZeteo News was created on theSubstack platform. Hasan stated: Zeteo "is an ancient Greek word that means to seek out, to inquire, to get to the truth".[41]Zeteo was presented as a subscription-based news organization. He announced that the platform will "bring you hard-hitting interviews and unsparing analysis that you won't find elsewhere".[41] Hasan presents a new video series on the Zeteo News channel,[42] the first one was called "Debunked! Top seven lies about Gaza".[42]
Contributors announced uponZeteo's launch in April 2024 includedNaomi Klein,Greta Thunberg,Viet Thanh Nguyen,John Harwood,Fatima Bhutto andOwen Jones, who would co-host the podcastTwo Outspoken alongside Hasan.[43] On 19 April 2024, it was announced thatBassem Youssef will join Zeteo as co-host for their new podcastWe're Not Kidding.[44]
In June 2024, Al-Jazeera announced the return of Hasan as host ofHead to Head.[22] The program returned with two interviews, one with Israeli historian,Benny Morris, and another with the former translator forDeng Xiaoping,Victor Gao, recorded in London in July 2024.[22]
In late October 2024, Hasan appeared as a guest panelist on theCNN showNewsNight with Abby Phillip. During the discussion, CNN contributor Ryan Girdusky told Hasan, "I hope your beeper doesn’t go off," referring to the2024 Lebanon electronic device attacks. Hasan responded by asking Girdusky, "Did you just say I should be killed live on CNN?". After a break, Girdusky was removed from the panel and hostAbby Phillip apologized to Hasan. CNN released a statement saying "There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN" and that Girdusky would not be invited back to the network.[45]
Zeteo released the documentaryGaza: Doctors Under Attack in July 2025 after the BBC decided not to air the film.[46]
During a sermon delivered in 2009, Hasan made remarks about "thekuffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of theQuran." Quoting a verse of the Quran, Hasan used the term "cattle" to describe non-believers and called them "incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices."[47][48][49] He also includedhomosexuality in a list of categories which he argued were transgressive of Islam.[48]
Quotes from these sermons were first publicized byPeter Hitchens in 2012; in his immediate response, Hasan argued these statements had been "selectively edited".[49]In 2019, Hasan apologized for his comments, which he declared to "deeply regret" now, and called them "dumb", "ranty" and "offensive".[50][51]
In February 2024, Hasan argued inThe Guardian that U.S. presidentJoe Biden could have ended theIsraeli bombing of the Gaza Strip by applying pressure on Israel.[52] During an interview onDemocracy Now! in late March 2024, Hasan expressed his concern aboutgenocide in Gaza with regard to theIsraeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and that Palestinian perspectives are not shared in U.S. media.[53]Middle East Eye reported that Hasan "challengesPiers Morgan's treatment of pro-Palestinian guests".[54]
Hasan was formerlyagainst abortion, a position he has since rejected. In an October 2012 online column for theNew Statesman he defended his anti-abortion views in print, writing "What I would like is for my fellow lefties and liberals to try to understand and respect the views of those of us who are pro-life, rather than demonise us as right-wing reactionaries or medieval misogynists."[55] Hasan argued that the issue of abortion "is one of those rare political issues on which left and right seem to have swapped ideologies: right-wingers talk of equality, human rights and 'defending the innocent', while left-wingers fetishise 'choice', selfishness and unbridled individualism."[55] He later expressed regret for his comments.[56] However, the article gained much attention on Twitter,[57] and Hasan debated the issue withSuzanne Moore onBBC Radio 4'sToday.[58]
In a 2020 series of tweets, Hasan expressed regrets for "having expressed offensive & illiberal views in the past on everything from homosexuality to abortion" and stated that they were views he no longer holds.[59]
Hasan has been critical of the human rights situation inPakistan, expressing disapproval of the country'sblasphemy law[60] as well as enforced disappearances inBalochistan. He has also criticised the human rights situation in both Indian and Pakistan-administeredKashmir, and has called out alleged backing from Pakistan forIslamic terrorist groups likeJaish-e-Mohammed andLashkar-e-Taiba to carry out attacks in Indian Kashmir.[61]
Hasan has made several statements in opposition to theSaudi government, including challenging a statement made byDonald Trump, in which he claimed that he himself had no financial interests in Saudi Arabia, an allegation which Trump called "fake news".[62] Hasan challenged Trump's statements in a video essay published byThe Intercept in October 2018.[63]
In February 2019, during a debate organised byIntelligence Squared in London,[64] Hasan stated that the West should cut ties with Saudi Arabia, saying: "It's time we make clear that the West needs to cut its ties with Saudi Arabia, especially military ties, arms exports, weapons, bombs."[64]
The comments were made in response to theassassination of Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly ordered by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia,Mohammad Bin Salman, as well as several human rights violations which Hasan cited as also being carried out by Saudi Arabia.[65] Hasan had previously interviewed Khashoggi about freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia.[66]
Hasan has repeatedly criticised rising religious nationalism, democratic backsliding, and suppression of dissent in India. During a February 2021 segment on The Mehdi Hasan Show, he described theIndian government's response to thefarmer protests as indicative of “accelerated” authoritarianism, drawing explicit comparisons between Indian rulers and former U.S. President Donald Trump.[67]
In an interview in March 2023, he characterised the political climate underPrime Minister Narendra Modi as "increasingly authoritarian". He highlighted threats to minority communities,including Muslims, and cited India's plunge in theReporters Without Borders press freedom index—from around 80th place two decades ago to near 180th—as a "depressing signal" for democracy.[68] In 2015, following his interview withBJP leaderRam Madhav, Hasan described the backlash he received fromHindutva supporters, which he argued exemplified a growing intolerance toward critical journalism and dissenting voices in India.[69]
He has also addressed the Kashmir conflict and the erosion of rights in the region. In a 2015 episode of Head to Head, he pressed Indian politicianShashi Tharoor on human rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir, citing anAmnesty International report that "not a single member of the security forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir over the past 25 years has been tried for alleged human rights violations in a civilian court."[70] In the exchange, Tharoor claimed the fundamental issue in India–Pakistan relations was the nature of the Pakistani state, a position Hasan challenged by referencingsystemic abuses in Kashmir under Indian administration.[70]
Hasan is married. He and his wife have two daughters.[43] He became anaturalized citizen of the United States on October 9, 2020.[71]
In January 2014, Hasan was awarded the Services to Media award at theBritish Muslim Awards.[72] In 2017, he was named European Young Leader by the Brussels-based think tankFriends of Europe [de].[73] In 2019, Hasan won the Society of Professional Journalists'Sigma Delta Chi Award for Online Column Writing.[74]
CNN barred a conservative commentator from its programs after he made on-air remarks on Monday that seemed to imply that another guest, the pundit Mehdi Hasan, was a member of Hezbollah.
