Donald Trump probably won't leave in 2028. I would not shock me at all if he tries to run again or if he tries to cancel or postpone elections. I think American democracy faces an existential threat. It has since he came down that escalator. Authoritarianism in America. It's not going to be Jack boots and concentration camps day one. It's going to be all band style. It's going to be Modi style. The leader gets his billionaire friends to buy up all the media, and that's what's happening
here. The one basic lesson I've learned about politics over 25 years is you can't meet fascists halfway. People don't vote for fascist light, right? They vote for the real thing. Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World. I'm Krishna Guri Murphy, and this is the podcast in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives and the events that have helped shape them.
My guest today is Mehdi Hassan. Now, Mehdi is a British American. He has worked on all sorts of mainstream media platforms from Channel 4 to Al Jazeera, but he now is an independent with his own platforms at Teo, which broadcasts on YouTube and other social media platforms. He is outspoken, he's a forensic interviewer, and he straddles the the world between conventional journalism and
advocacy and argument. And there's a lot to talk to him about where the media is going and the role of journalism. Mehdi, welcome. Thanks. For having me, Krishna a long time. Yeah, if you could change the world in any way, how would you change it? OK, so we're starting with the big questions. How would I change the world if
I could change it? I guess given my background and what I do, I would change the world by making it harder for the people in power to lie without consequence and I think I try and do that everyday by asking people in power questions they don't want to ask. Do you think it works? I mean, people often ask me this question about, you know, holding people to account and holding truth to power and pointing out the lies and pointing out the factual errors.
Do you think it's working? Because because you have particularly honed in on that as your speciality in the way you interview people, I think. I guess it depends what day of the week it is Christian. Today we're recording on a Thursday. So today maybe I do believe it has value. If it's Friday, maybe I won't. It's very hard to work out when what we're doing actually has an impact in the current age. I remember back in 2016 being at Al Jazeera and Donald Trump winning that election.
I remember vividly turning to my colleague to my right and saying we might as well just this all up and go be accountants, right? What is the point of doing what we're doing when millions of people are completely immune to fact based journalism, are living in a cocoon, you know, completely detached from reality. And you know, we are a decade later and it's much worse today, much, much worse.
The information aid. So we try, you know, I would, I would point to you that there's a poll out today that shows Donald Trump is underwater on every single issue by the border, by double digit points, the economy, immigration, Epstein, Greenland. So it's not as if it's not cutting through. People do hear and see what's
going on and change their minds. But it's getting harder and harder, given the ability for politicians, especially on the right, to shield their followers from facts and figures and information. And globally, politicians are copying Trump left, right and center. And it's working. Yeah, I, I noticed that. So I used to do a show for Al Jazeera called Upfront, where it was a weekly show where I interviewed politicians from around the world, Africa, Asia, Middle East, everywhere.
And I noticed that very quickly in 20/17/2018 that the ministers from kind of African governments that I was interviewing sounded exactly like Trump. They were saying fake news and they were getting mad about things you don't get mad about. They were attacking the interview and it was like, this is very Trumpian and why wouldn't they, right. They saw what worked in the United States, so why can't they
do it too? And we now do have this series of Mini Trump's around the world, which again makes journalism harder. Yeah, so, so, so how do you see your role? I mean, you have worked in, you know, British media, you worked on Channel 4, the Bbci think you did a sort of a very traditional media role on Aljazeera as well as sort of the anchor and interviewer, you know, trying to be impartial, not giving out your own opinions. You've ditched all of that and you've come out with what you
believe. Yeah, it's, it's a good question. I don't know if I've ditched it. Even Al Jazeera, I still do a show called Head to Head, which I've been doing for coming up to 14 years now since I launched with Richard Dawkins and my position on impartiality, Christian and actually Channel 4 News, I know takes I used to work at Channel 4 with you there. It takes a pretty similar opinion, which is impartiality doesn't mean you have no views. It means that you actually give
other people a right of reply. You give the other side of the argument, but it doesn't mean you can't make an argument, doesn't mean you can't take a position. And and that's always been my case. I still do interviews on Al Jazeera in London call head to It's very clear where I'm coming from. If I'm interviewing an Israeli official, for example, it's very clear what my position is and what's happening in Gaza, that
it's a genocide. But it's not as if I don't give him a chance to ask the question, as if I don't make sure that the audience has supporters of his. We're not, you know. So in that sense, impartiality is a very tricky word and people throw it around without really understanding it. But yes, I've always had very strong views. And when I was a commissioning editor at Channel 4, behind the scenes, I had to keep many of
those views to myself. When I left Channel 4, that's actually when I came out of the political closet. Should we use that phrase and made it very clear what my views were? Because I left Channel 4 in 2000, I'm trying to think what year was 2000 and nine, 2009? Yes, 2009. And I joined the New Statesman magazine as the political editor there. And that's where I started turning up on TV and writing pieces and airing my positions. And I have an opinion journalist. I've never hit that fact.
And I obviously when I worked at MSNBC here in the United States, that is an opinion cable news channel. So you're presenting the news, but you are giving your take on the news. And you know what, in the current climate, frankly, I find that a more honest position than the people who pretend to be impartial but end up not being
impartial at all. Look at what's happening right now in the US with CBS News. And then you host where they're pretending to be in the middle, but it's basically pro Trump TV. Yeah. I mean in, in terms of sort of nailing the truth though, and pointing out for lies, what what have you found as the difference in how people react when you have an open opinion and an open position?
And, and lots of American, you know, America dropped the, you know, the, the impartiality principle a long time ago, the fairness doctrine. But have you noticed any difference in the way people respond to your journalism after after actually telling them what you think? Yeah, it's a good question. So one thing I would say to British viewers and listeners is the US is very interesting in a sense the reverse of the UK, right?
In the UK, the newspapers are all loud, boisterous, partisan and the news channels are impartial and neutral, Ofcom regulated. In the US, it's almost a reverse. And newspapers take great pride in not being partisan and having this Chinese wall between opinion and news, very strict standards. And then you have cable TV, which is very loud and boisterous and very, very partisan.
Fox on the right, kind of MSNBC on the kind of bland center left, CNN pretending to be in the middle, but not really. And that's an interesting dichotomy. But look, my position is I found in Zeteo coming up to two years ago, nearly in in April, May 2024. And 1 of the things I said was we are going to take positions on the big issues of the day and we are going to say things that we believe to be the truth and they're backed up by fact.
So for example, fascism, a word that a lot of people in the US media were running away from until very recently, still wouldn't say the F word in relation to Donald Trump or you can't say he's a fascist. The G word genocide. You can't say genocide about Gaza. That's that's taboo. And my position is a we're going to say those words and we're not going to, you know, face any consequences as many have in our media for saying those words.
Lost jobs over it, But also we're going to back it up with facts. When I say genocide, Christian, I'm just saying because I don't like Israel. I'm interviewing Omar Batov, the preeminent scholar of genocide at Brown University, an Israeli Holocaust historian, and he's coming on to explain why it meets the definition of a genocide. So I I, you know, it's very easy to say, oh, people just running their views. I get it. Cable news has poisoned a lot of
people. It's put out a lot of propaganda, especially on the right. I mean, Fox, I refuse to call it Fox News. It's just a, it's just a Republican Party propaganda channel. I get why people are skeptical of that. But also Christian, come to the US. People here are so fed up with the quote UN quote MSM. They're so fed up of being lied to more more than being lied to. They're fed up of being patronized. Christian, they want to be
treated as adults. One of the reasons I succeeded in the US, you know, a lot of people, I came here in 2016. I worked for Al Jazeera till 2020. I worked for MSNBC from 2020. People came up to me and said, we like the fact that you asked tough questions. We like the fact that you say what you mean. You don't hide behind lazy euphemisms and both sides bullshit. And I think people are just so fed up of that, especially at a time when fascists are at the
door. They don't want to both sides fascism, they don't want to both sides genocide. They want people who can just say plainly what's going on. I mean, you say nobody can sack you now. I mean, what what happened with MSNBCI mean? Do you think there was any elements of you being too difficult for them? You know that they didn't like your views. So that's what some people say. I worked there for 3 1/2 years. I had a great time at MSNBCI,
learned a lot. I got a great platform, I interviewed and met a lot of interesting people. It was a great experience. I have no regrets. But at that time, they decided to cancel my shows. I had two shows for them and I knew that that was a moment where this was the end of 2023 and I knew that 2024 was election year. There was no way I could just be benched. They offered me to stay on and be a guest host and that wasn't what he wanted to do.
As you know, Christian, I'm sitting here with you. I have a lot of opinions. I have a lot of things I want to say. So it was a no brainer for me that I had to leave and do my own thing. And actually, it's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I mean, what I mean is, you know, you mentioned CBS and what's going on there under Barry Wise. You know, do you think the networks and their stated position of impartiality is true?
No absolute bullshit. I mean, the American media is completely be clowned itself in in recent years, in recent months. I mean, the reason we're in this state right now with Trump consolidating power is because of what happened right at the beginning of his presidency. Christian, he comes into power. ABC News owned by Disney, settles A lawsuit with him because George Stephanopoulos literally quoted a judge in his sexual abuse case and used the rape word. He sued George Stephanos.
Most lawyers think that ABC would have won that if it gone to trial. Instead they paid, I think remember at 12, thirteen, $14 million settlement. Then he sued CBS News Christian for the most absurd thing that anyones ever sued a news organization for editing an interview of Kamala Harris he didn't like the edit of. Again, every lawyer says that CBS would have won in court, but CBS then in the middle of a big merger, decided to settle and
pay him $16,000,000. These are for the American public, which has always been skeptical of a corporate control media, especially on the left. I mean, this is the most brazen evidence that the corporations that run these channels, the Disney's and the Paramount's, they're not interested in news
or impartiality or the truth. They're interested in appeasing the government in office, a very authoritarian government that all band style and Modi style and Erdogan style has made it clear to media organizations that you get in line or you will lose out. And even the ones who aren't sued, like Comcast, donate to the White House extension. Yeah, there's a lot of things going on.
I mean, Elizabeth Warren, who's a Democratic senator, very prominent, has talked about this stuff being bribery. She has talked about the fact that if that if slash when Democrats get back into office, they will investigate this stuff as bribery. Because that's what it looks like, right? That's what it looks like to the average American, that you pay a bunch of money and then Donald Trump allows your merger to go through. And Trump has made this very clear.
So I'm involved in all these decisions. I mean, the the autocracy, the authoritarianism, the corruption is very brazen here in the US right now. It's all that done in the open. Corruption's, you know, it's a word that we'll have our lawyers panicking, but lots of people are talking about corruption quite openly in terms of this
administration. We might, we might get onto it with Gaza and what's been just announced over the the Board of Peace and their plans for for expansion there as well. What do you mean by corruption? I mean, that a lot of Americans look at the state of our politics. I mean, if you ask Americans what they're most fed up about, it is corruption. They will say corruption. It's the issue that comes up in opinion polls.
It's one of the main reasons Donald Trump won, ironically, even though many regard him as a deeply corrupt politician. People were so fed up with the system in 2016 and again in 2024 that they want people just to tear it all down. And they like outsiders. And Donald Trump very cleverly, very fraudulently, in my view, presented himself as an outsider, even though he's a, you know, it's been inside the system as a quote, UN quote billionaire for years.
New York Times Christian just yesterday did a story to mark his anniversary in office saying he and him and his family have made over a billion and 1/2 in, in, in, in wealth increases since he came to office. It's the biggest increase in wealth of any president in modern times coming to office. We have his children making a lot of money out of deals. We have him specifically still making money.
And it's, it's insane. I mean, you look at what's happening in Venezuela, Krishna, the oil's coming out and it's going to a Trump donor in a Qatari bank account. I mean, the whole thing is absurd. So there is a massive perception of corruption. There's a massive frustration with corruption. You have ethics organizations accusing the Trump administration of corruption on a level we haven't seen in our lifetimes before. And then again, yes, the media
is complicit in this. Instead of the media holding up, you know, a light and flashing a light on all this corruption, the media organizations themselves look like they're corrupt too. Because again, what else do you say when Elizabeth Warren says this looks like a bribe?
When Paramount and the Ellison family, who are close to Trump, are paying $16,000,000 to settle a lawsuit that they don't need to settle, and then they get favourable treatment for the government, What are we supposed to call that? So what do you think you're, you know, what is it that you're doing now with this? I mean, are are you effectively a political player now in advocating for the kind of world you want? You know, what are you?
How are you trying to change the world given what your profession is? It's an interesting question. So I I would break it up into two parts, Krishna. First of all, on the issue of fascism and the assault on our democracy and the Free Press. I don't think you have to be a political player to say you support truth and reality based
journalism. To say up is up, not up is down to, you know, we live in a world where people in our media and our politics and our public life, especially here in the US want us to believe that up is down, hot is cold, black is white. And I think simply pointing that that is not true, that we are being gaslit. That's not a political position. That's just speaking truth. Not even to power, just speaking the truth. But you go beyond that, don't you?
I mean, you know, because you're not just correcting the untruths. I agree. I do go beyond that. I do go beyond that, but that's what I'm saying. I break into two parts. 1 is the very basic mission of journalism, which we're failing at, which is just speaking the truth with that is failing. And that's one of the reasons I set up Zeteo to be able to speak freely without having to worry about corporate boardrooms and government pressure and advertiser your influence.
That's we're failing at that, right? And that needs to be said. I'm fed up of people saying journalists need to be neutral on every issue. Actually, journalists should not be neutral on the issue of democracy. Journalists should have a bias. You, me, everybody in our profession, in our industry should have a bias towards the truth, a bias towards reality, and a bias towards democracy, because journalism cannot exist without democracy. So we're not neutral players on
this. We're not sitting on some hilltop watching from afar with some neutral I. That's BS #2 you say I go beyond that. Yes, of course I do. I'm on the left, I take political positions. I'm an opinion journalist. I want universal healthcare. I want an actual ceasefire, not a pretend ceasefire in Gaza. You know, I want the Epstein files released. I want a Supreme Court that isn't packed with Trump toadies. Clearly I have political positions which I don't hide. Right.
But, but what I mean is, are you doing what you're doing now because you want to persuade people, you know, is, is, is this a sort of a new, a new sort of hybrid, you know, type of media that you're, you're in, you know, because you're, I think you are sort of a pioneer in this. That is sort of somewhere between what we used to think of as the media and politics. Yeah, and I think a lot of people in that space, not maybe in the exact space I'm in. Yeah, I've always been about persuasion.
I literally wrote a book about persuasion. So I've always believed that there's no point taking positions if you can't change people's minds, if you can't take people with you, if you can't help them see the world in the way you see the world, otherwise, what is the point? You know, I've since I was a child, I've always, you know, if a tree falls out of wood and there's no one around to hear,
it doesn't make a sound. And I've always thought about that when it comes to the news, we do a lot of interesting stuff and people either don't hear it or see it, or they hear and see it but don't understand it or it doesn't have any impact on them. And for me, that has always been part whether whether I was a commissioning editor at Channel 4, whether I was a producer at Sky News, whether I was a columnist at New Statesman, whether I was anchor Al Jazeera or MSNBC.
That's always been my position, that I want people to be able to see the world the way I see it, see what needs to be said, understand what's going on behind the scenes. Otherwise, what is the point of everything we do? I might as well pack it in and go be an accountant. Not done anything wrong with being an accountant. People seeing what you say today though, depends on, you know, to some extent getting into bed with the devil, doesn't it?
I mean, you are dependent on on the algorithms you know, and they can presumably freeze you out at some point if they want to. Yeah, it's a huge problem. It's why I get to come back to kind of opinion Jones. One of the positions I take is that we need to regulate and break up big tech. I mentioned Elizabeth Warren earlier. I support the Warren Sanders approach to breaking up big tech.
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg 2. Human beings should not control what hundreds of millions of people see in here on a daily basis. That is clearly undemocratic. That is clearly illiberal and I think we need to do something about it. The public space, the public town square, whatever you want to call it. One thing I would say, and I'll give a shout out here to Sub Stack Zeteo is on the Sub Stack platform, which is a newsletter platform for those of you who don't know.
And you know, it is has a much better commitment to free speech than most of these oligarchs out of Silicon Valley. It's why we're here and also we control our subscriptions, we control our newsletter, we control our subscribers. So, you know, today we have over 600,000 subscribers in the US and around the world. You know, God forbid the tech companies decide to illiberally and undemocratically and cut us
off. We can still survive just with our 600 subscribers, 600,000 subscribers to our newsletter. We also have a million and a half subscribers on YouTube. Clearly, Google could screw us with that. So to what extent do you have to provide people with what does well on YouTube? You know, does that skew your editorial values? It's, it's no, it's a good question, Christian, because a lot of people in the independent space, they'll say stuff like, I'm completely independent,
unlike the corporate people. I've never gone down that road. I, I try and be self aware. I know what you're getting at. It is very hard even in the independent space to be truly independent in the sense that there is the danger of audience capture, right? We are playing to a subscription base. I know I have subscribers. I'll give you one example. When the election happened at the end of 2024, our subscribers as a tear of a very split,
right. We had a bunch of people saying Trump is the menace, we need to get behind Harris and we need to stop Trump. That is what all of your journalism should be about. And then we had a bunch of people saying the genocide is the biggest issue. There's no way we can do anything other than oppose Harris and Biden. Doesn't matter if Trump wins, Democrats have to be punished for a genocide.
And we lost a lot of subscribers on both sides, people who are not happy with our journalism from either direction. I remember seeing people cancelling their subscriptions. Now, a lot of independent media platforms in that position and say, well, let's just give the people what they want. Now separately, I couldn't give them what they want because we had a split base. But but that is a danger, right, That you're a small business. We're a small business.
I'm a businessman now as well as a journalist is a weird thing to say. And I have to think about revenue. I have to think about the people I employ. I have to think about subscriptions. And I think, well, you know, if people are cancelling because they don't like what I'm saying,
should I change what I'm saying? That clearly is an ethical, journalistic and professional dilemma that and it's and it would be, it would be ridiculous for me to pretend that's not the case for everyone in the independent space, especially with YouTube and the algorithms and the way people have to play to the algorithms. We haven't gone YouTube first.
Right now, our priority is still the newsletter, which is what we've built up. We have built up an audience on YouTube, as I say, of over a million and a half. And yeah, you know, you think about, of course, you think about what does well on YouTube. Of course you think about what kind of tone and style does well on YouTube. We all adopt different. You know, habits and approaches to different platforms. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's not being 2 faced.
That's just meeting people where they are. I mean, I'm sitting with you right now on a podcast wearing a hoodie. Yesterday, Tuesday night, I was in DC interviewing congressman on stage. I was in a suit and tie, right? You know, that's, this is this is this, this is that. So I, I, you know, I get it. It is a danger to go down a road where you're just playing to one particular platform or algorithm and we try and resist that, but we're not always successful. I'll be honest about that.
And you have a sort of a bit of a double act going with, with Piers Morgan, which I presume help both your audience base, you know, pull in both your audience bases. Yeah, I mean, he's, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a juggernaut on YouTube. There's no debate about that. I, I did a debate. I I did an interview with him after they bombed Lebanon, I remember and it went viral where I kind of, he didn't know when Hezbollah was founded.
And we went back and forth and then I flew to Malaysia for a conference and all these Malaysians came up to me and said literally 1 after in different places, oh, we watched you and Peers book. And I was like, wow, I don't want to inflate his ego even more, but I did text him and say peers are people in Malaysia talking about how the row we just had. And again, that is a phenomenon,
right? That is that is, you know, what Peers has done on YouTube is create a media company that has a global reach in a very short space of time. And more people watch that. When I go on Piers Morgan, I get more feedback from people in the street than I get from when I go on CNN or MSNBC or the BBC. And that's the reality we live in now. And people say, oh, why do you go on Piers Morgan? People who hate him will say why
he's awful. Friends and families don't go on Piers Morgan. And I'll be, but it's a big platform again to come back to my tree falls and I would why would I not want to get my views across on a big platform? Now I do have a hygiene test. I don't go on Fox. They have a big platform, but I wouldn't go on Fox. Let's rewind a little bit and work out sort of where your views come from. You, you, you posted a, you know, a, a moving post about your father who passed away
recently. And it was, it was very explicit that you are the product of of his journey. My father was an immigrant who moved to the UK in in 1966 and he moved from India. And he taught me a lot of what I know about politics and what I think about the world. And, you know, as we're all human beings, Christian, and we come from different places, our values, our opinions. You know, I have a mother, a father of siblings, friends, school, religion. I take from all those places.
But yes, the kind of passion against, you know, the burning passion to fight injustice that I believe I have and I, that motivates a lot of what I do, I do think comes from my dad. You know, he was talking about politics and labor politics and Harold Wilson and Clement Attlee when I was 678 years old. He was talking about the Middle East, you know, and what was going on, unfortunately in Palestine even back then in the
1980s when I was a kid. So I did take a lot about that and speaking truth to power and debating. I wrote a book about debate Christian. And in the introductory, you know, in the in the intro, I say very clearly, like a lot of people say, where does this come from? Your knack and your obsession with debating? It comes from my father of my house. I grew up in a very disputatious household. You know, one of my earliest memories about, you know, politics and controversy.
And I tell the story in the book is, do you remember in the late 80s, you know, people in Muslims in Bradford are burning copies of The Satanic Verses. Salma Rushdesberg, my dad buys a copy, puts it on our bookshelf in the dining room. And Muslim friends of ours are coming over and going crazy. Like, what are you doing? Why do you have this book in your house? And he would say, well, how can you condemn it if you haven't read it, right?
Have you read it? And that that mentality that can slight contrarianism, that ability to poke holes in people's arguments definitely does come from my dad. Yes. You, you talked about, you know, how he, he came to Britain but held onto his love of India. He refused to be sort of defined in anyone religious, political, nationalistic tradition. And I suppose you're doing the
same. But you've but you've left Britain. And I just wonder why, you know, did you find Britain too small, too boring, too insular? You're putting words in my mouth. Krishna will get me in trouble. Let me. Well, look, it is very strange to always have to define myself these days as an immigrant because I grew up saying I was. I'm not an immigrant. You know when racist used to say go back to India, I'm born here, I'm from Swindon. You've made yourself an immigrant again.
Well, what's interesting now, Christian, is we've we've we've advanced in the world of racism. Now people told me to go back to the UK. I'm like, oh, what an insult that is. Like, yeah, you have American right wingers tell you, I have members of Congress, Republicans saying get out, we're going to deport you to the UK. Oh, how painful. We've kind of made some advances there. They haven't told me to go back to India, but, yeah, I am an immigrant now.
So I do get the racism that my dad got in the 60s, different kind of racism. My dad got the kind of dog excrement pushed through the letterbox. I get Republican members of Congress saying I'm a jihadist and I should be de naturalized. So this is the world we live in now. Yeah. Why did I do it? It's a great question. Well, my wife's American, so I've talked openly about the fact that, you know, she wanted to do a move and.
And I and I wanted to try out working in the US Christian, you know that British journalists have long, you know, tried, tried their hand at doing stuff in the US You mentioned Piers Morgan, he had a rather interesting, partly successful than disastrous journey at CNN. Actually, I remember going into a big job interview, a major network here in the US and the person behind the desk said, why would we hire another British anchor? We already had Piers Morgan,
which was a kind of funny story. But then I ended up at MSNBC and I would say Christian without wanting to kind of shit all over the UK, which I love. I'm still a proud Brit as much as a proud American. There is no denying the fact that America is a bigger country with more opportunity, especially for non white people. It's ironic that we talk so much about racism in the US and the anti black racism.
The legacy of slavery is massive, don't get me wrong, but if you're a non white immigrant here, it is more meritocratic. There are more opportunities, including in the media, not just in the media, across industries. And I do think if I'd been in the UK, would I be where I am today? Would I be running my own business? Probably not Would I have had a prime time show on national TV? Probably not. So I do think there are more
opportunities for people here. And I think people like my good friend Riz when he did his Channel 4 speech talked about this a few years ago. I think people like Idris Elba, you know, people in Hollywood have also talked about this, non the non white roles and non white opportunities in the US for people in media, in entertainment, in IT. There is more opportunity here, weirdly and kind of
counterintuitively in many ways. So, with a bit of distance, do do do you think Britain is a lot more racist within its establishments than it likes to think? Yes, 100%. When I don't think I fully realised it till I moved here, which is a weird thing to say because America's going through a very racist moment. But as I say, it's a different kind of racism in terms of kind of the workplace, in terms of rewarding talent. I do think it's much more open here and there are many more
opportunities. I mean, clearly the size issue, it's a big place, but also it's a mentality issue. And I think the UKI think about, for example, when I worked for the New Statesman and I was a political actor, but I never went to the lobby. We had a separate journalist who
would go and get the lobby pass. And for people not watching the lobby is the Downing St. press corps who spend their time at #10 And I remember we did a feature, The New Statesman about the lobby and about, you know, coverage of media. And it was, you know, it was all about how all white it was. And you know, this Christian, because you're one of the, you know, you're one of the people who've broken so many barriers in the UK media. You've been presenting on
Channel 4 News for decades. I don't even know how long. I feel like you've always been there ever since I was alive. Sorry to sorry to make you sound old, but you, you know, you were one of the rare faces when people back 20 years ago when people said, I don't know, brown people on TV. You would be like one of the three people you can name check. And before you, I think it was Zainab Badawi. So, you know, I look at the Downing St. press code. I remember it being very, very white.
And I talked to a friend of mine recently and it hasn't changed that much. I mean, there's Shahab Khan and others, ITV, but it's still pretty, pretty white. And I think we, you know, that conversation has not really happened in the UK as it should do in America. People say you're obsessed with race. I think that's a good thing. The more you talk about racism racism, the better chance you have of overcoming it.
Yes, I mean, I suppose the, the, the one difference when when I think about the two countries though at the moment for somebody like you who cares passionately about democracy is that democracy doesn't feel under threat in Britain. But if you look at America, you you wonder how long it's going
to be a democracy. Oh, 100% I'm the person who's been screaming about democracy in America for years now and I I'm the person on the record saying Donald Trump probably won't leave in 2028. I have no, I would not shock me at all if he tries to run again or if he tries to cancel or postpone elections. I think American democracy faces an existential threat. It has since he came down there escalator in May of 2015. There's no doubt about that. But let's not be complacent in the UK.
You know, we know that when, you know, America sneezes, the UK catches a cold or whatever the phrases. We know that traditionally American politics has been followed the trends here very quickly by the UK, whether it's Reagan and Thatcher, Clinton and Blair. We know that whether it's Brexit and Trump, we know there are parallels between our two countries. And I think it would be weird to be complacent about the fact that, yes, the UK right now does not face an existential threat
to democracy. But the trend lines are very clear. I mean, you're having hundreds of people who are protesting peacefully being picked up by the police. You have pensioners and elderly people because they hold up Palestine in action. They're getting picked up. I'm I'm watching images of priests and little old ladies and people in wheelchairs being dragged away by police, right? That is a threat to democracy.
You're watching people like Nigel Farage leading in the polls, about to win the next election apparently, if the polls are to be believed, a super illiberal party, their reform, which is a great fan of the Donald Trump MAGA party. So I think the trend lines in the UK are not very good. I don't think they're good anywhere across the Western democratic world, to be honest. So you don't, you don't feel a a sort of sense of duty to come back and fight Nigel Farage on
on your channel. It's funny. So it's so, it's so funny. You should say. Well, no. I mean, I'm happy to interview reform people and I have in the past and we're trying to get actually an Al Jazeera interview going with a reform politician
hopefully soon. But but let me just say this, in the first few years after I moved to the USI moved to the US in 2015. In the first few years I went back, fellow journalists and people you and I know and friends and family would say to me when are you coming back? When are you coming back? No one says that to me anymore.
Is that weird? So I think that says a lot about the UK, not the USI think that says a lot about people in the UK, especially non white people in the UK who are wondering about their own long term futures in that country. Yeah, that's conversation people are having. It's not quite packing the suitcase yet, but. No, but it's but it's people thinking what I might be here, but is there a future for my kids here and my grandkids here?
If I think over the last year, I mean you, you've, you've certainly been most vocal and most active on Israel, Gaza again in terms of sort of what you're achieving. Do you feel you've won people over in any sense? Attract people to the argument. I do, actually. I say it for two reasons. One is the big picture, which is not just me. You just look at the big picture of American public opinion. We're seeing things we've never
seen in our lifetimes. I never thought I would see polling showing more American sympathize with Palestinians and Israelis. I never thought I would see polling showing a majority of Americans are now critical of Israel. I never thought I would see polling showing half of Americans say it's a genocide. I never saw polling saying that only. I think it's only 8% of Democrats are happy with their party's support for Israel. I think that is a massive sea
change in public opinion. Obviously, partly that's just due to the horrific genocide that has been live streamed to
our phones for over 2 years. But partly it's due to the advocacy from a lot of us trying very hard to go out, whether it's on CNN or Piers Morgan or live debate stages in Toronto and New York, as I have, and trying to convince people and point out to them that you don't know what's happening in the Middle East. You haven't been told a full history of what's happening in Gaza. The world did not begin on October the 7th. And I think that has had an impact.
And again, that's the big picture. But I can also give you anecdotal data. I've had people message me on social media through Zeteo saying I had no idea about any of this stuff. I used to be someone who was either neutral or pro Israel. And over the last two years, your content has helped me understand what's really happening. And the reason I know we're having an impact is because
guess what they're trying to do? I mentioned the Ellison family, they're buying TikTok. And what are they buying TikTok for? To stop China? No, they've been very brazen about it. Mitt Romney said on stage TikTok is too pro Palestinian, that Benjamin Netanyahu said the big war we have right now is to take control of TikTok or words to that effect. And I think that again is a reminder, Krishnan, that they've
lost the PR battle. They've lost the debate online and in public and in politics and in the media, the pro Israel, pro genocide side. And I think that fills me with a little bit of hope, even in these dark times. And that Elson wants wants CNN as well, doesn't he?
Yes he does. And Can you imagine AUS media landscape in which Elon Musk Trump Trump supporter controls Twitter ex Mark Zuckerberg now de facto a Trump supporter controlling Facebook, Meta, WhatsApp, Instagram, the Ellison family, the most pro Trump pro Israel billionaire family around controlling CBS News, possibly CNN TikTok. Obviously Fox and Rupert Murdoch have always been in the can. It's a very, very dangerous climate.
I I said this, I said this two years ago that what it's going to look like authoritarianism in America. It's not going to be Jack boots and concentration camps day one. It's going to be Orban style. It's going to be Modi style. It's going to be Erdogan style. The The leader gets his billionaire friends to buy up all the media, right? And that's what's happening here. So do you, do you think the traditional media structures are effectively dead in America and that the future is, is is is
kind of going your way? Yeah, I think they're exaggerating when they say people say it's dead. Clearly millions of people still watch the nightly news, still watch cable news, still read the New York Times. Clearly the people who matter. Christian, this is another point, right? It doesn't matter how few sales the New York Times does, as long as people in power still reading the opinion pages and still taking their cues from the front pages. So clearly they still have
influence and relevance. It would be insane to pretend otherwise. But the trend line for them is bad. I worked at MSNBC. I saw all the data. I saw all the ratings. I sat in all the meetings with people pulling their hair out about what's what's the future of cable news. You know, nobody under the age of 30 has cable. Nobody on my team has cable. When I was working at MSNBC, none of the young producers at MSNBC had cable, right.
So the the trend line is bad and there's a trust issue and there's a technological issue where people cutting the cable. So that makes it very hard for media to survive. I think Donald Trump separately has done huge damage to the media's reputation in terms of just spending ten years non-stop relentlessly attacking the media. He's taken 30% of the population and they will never trust the media ever again. They are lost. At least one in three Americans is completely lost to mainstream
media. And therefore, look, I said this the other day on stage in DC, we had a big live event for Zeteo. And I said, look, the fact that CBS News is imploding is great for Zeteo. It's great for me as a businessman. It's bad for me as an American, right? I don't want the mainstream media to die. I don't, I don't think, I don't think for me to survive the mainstream media to die. I think the mainstream media still has important reporting on huge events, especially around the world.
It's not good for American democracy if the media is dying and everyone hates the media. But clearly independent media is going to thrive at a time when corporate media is so brazenly failing. But but can you survive in all? Sorry, Christian. Gaza, by the way, has played a big role in that right, big role, especially on the left. Right people spent two. I know people who were very mainstream liberals, not lefties.
Nothing. And they just cancelled the New York Times subscriptions because they're just so fed up of seeing the mismatch between the genocide on their phones and the bullshit evasions and both sides in in the headlines of the Times or the coverage on CNN, etcetera. If your warnings are correct, though, about American democracy, they can shut you down. People said to me when Trump was elected, this is great for you, good for business, you'll have so much content.
And I said, yeah, if Immediate survives, I'll have great content. And I'm under no illusions about the threat we face. We have to spend way more money now on liability coverage and insurance because we live a little serious climate where Trump and Musk sue people into oblivion. That's another form of intimidation against the Free Press. We have the DOJ going after journalists. The FBI just raided the home of a Washington Post journalist and
took her laptop and phones. And guess who didn't say anything about it? Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, now a close ally of Trump, SAT quietly, didn't say a word of outrage or objection. So this is the world we live. I'm under no illusions of the threats we face. I'm under no illusions of the threats to our personal safety and security, to the viability of our companies and our media organisations. Yeah, I don't know how much more to scream it out loud.
This is, is really bad. It was amusing to me, Christian, when I saw a British journalist over the last few days, you know, clutching pearls, saying, oh, my God, Donald Trump, he's acting so erratically and reckless. I'm like, yeah, welcome to our world. Keep up. Yeah. I mean, do you, do you take any hope from the reaction of American cities to ICE or do you think those people prepared to stand up to ICE are, you know, for wants of a better phrase,
the usual suspects? No, no, not the usual suspects at all. And I think people watching a white mother who dropped her kid to school being killed in cold blood, I think was a transformative moment for a lot of Americans. They used to see black and brown people abused by law enforcement. Look, I would say two things about that. One is obviously I'm hopeful when I see people power, the thing that keeps me most hopeful is people, right?
Real people, separate to all the stuff that goes on online. And if you look at the polling that I mentioned at the start of our conversation, Trump is underwater on every issue, including on ICE and on immigration, hugely water, even even a small minority of Republicans have turned him on on that, according to the polls. People are unhappy. They're seeing this fascist militia terrorize American citizens, not just immigrants on our streets, not just undocumented immigrants, I should add.
And it's changing minds. And I think it would be bad in any normal election. The problem, Krishnan, this is where my head crashes up to my heart. My heart says, yes, hope. I'm inspired by people taking action. I'm inspired by people turning against fascism. My head says, yeah, but is that going to work if we don't have a free and fair election? And how come that Donald Trump is so relaxed about how
unpopular is? A lot of people have made this point, Krishnan, in any normal political climate, right, you're this unpopular. Donald Trump just had his most unpopular poll ever this week. If you're that unpopular, your strategist come in and you do a reboot. You do a relaunch, you pivot away, you sack some people, you stop doing unpopular things. These people are doubling down on their ICE stuff. They're doubling down on their foreign imperialism. Why is that?
Is that because they know we're not going to have another free and fair election in that country? Is it because they're relaxed about the outcome of the next election? Sorry to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but Donald Trump, especially post Epstein, has turned even me into a conspiracy theorist.
And to bring it back to Britain again, I mean, have you, have you been watching, thinking why aren't people making this argument on immigration at a time when immigration has become one of the big motivating factors in political disaffection and the growth of the rights and the success of Nigel Farage and Reform? Yeah, I, I, I feel like, I, I feel like I want to bang my head against the wall, like watching
the UK right now. As you know, I was a journalist there for nearly 15 years before I moved. It's deja vu. I mean, I feel like I've seen this movie before. I mean, Keir Starmer, Tony Blair, I mean he's Tony Blair without any charm. But that the whole, the whole Blair ISM mantra of a kind of triangulating and stealing the rights clothes and then seeing it backfire in front of our eyes. We've seen this movie before. We saw it in 2000 and 78910. We saw it with Tony Blair and asylum seekers.
We saw it with Gordon Brown and British jobs for British workers. How did that work out? It worked out with the Tories winning the election. It worked out with UKIP on the rise pre reform. Those, those are my political memories of the UK, UK. And now I see the whole thing happening again. The Keir Starmer is the greatest gift you could ever give Nigel Farage. With this Labour government in office, doing what they're doing, we're almost guaranteed a reform government next time around.
And that's why I do admire people like Zach Polanski trying to reinvigorate a kind of a minor party like the Green Party by speaking more plainly and honestly and authentically about these issues. You don't look one. The one basic lesson I've learned about politics over 25 years is you can't meet fascists halfway. People don't vote for fascists light right, They vote for the
real thing. You can do your best impersonation of Donald Trump if you're a Democrat, or Nigel Farage if you're a Labour Party politician. And it will not work in the long term. Maybe in the short term it will, but certainly not in the long term. And that's why the trends in the UK are so bad. And we need people who can stand up to these illiberate, illiberal, autocratic, nativist trends. I mean that that's an argument as to why Labour might be getting it wrong, but how?
How would you take on Farage and his basic argument? Well, tell me what his basic argument you think is. Well, I mean if, if, if, if so many roads to the problems of Britain lead to immigration, whether it's housing, health service, public services in in their terms and it's persuasive to a lot of people. How do you change people's minds? So, I mean, it's a great question. I've read a book about changing people's lives, a tough one. I'm not pretending there's an
easy answer in immigration. I would say that I question your premise, right? I don't accept that the issues of housing and health are driven by immigration. They're driven by austerity. Health services driven by austerity. We had 10 years of austerity, the worst austerity in living memory. I wrote a book about austerity in 2011, warning about the dangers of austerity politically and economically.
Osborne and Cameron, you know, we talk about Boris Johnson is trust for me, the villains of the story are still David Cameron and George Osborne, who laid the groundwork both for austerity and Brexit. And I think that's where we are today. And I think you've got to start by first questioning the premise that immigrants are to blame. There's a fascinating poll, Krishna, that's always done. I haven't seen the latest one in the UK, but when I lived in the
UK, every year it was the same. I think it was from Gallup. That shows if you ask the British public are you bothered about immigration, Do you think immigrant immigration is a problem for the UK, They will say yes it is. And if you say do you think it's a problem in your local area, they say no it isn't. And that disconnect is very
simple. That disconnect is politicians aided by the media, the right wing media in particular the mails and expresses fanning the flames of this issue and making it into something that is abstract and out there and a boogeyman to be blamed rather than billionaires and corporate boardrooms and right wing politicians. And I think you've got to start if you're going to win this debate. You first thing about winning a debate is you don't fight the debate.
You don't fight on your opponent's terrain, right? You fight on your own terrain. You don't accept the premises of the motion set out by your opponent, to use a debate phrase. And then that's what has to happen. The problem we have with Labour and even to an extent the Lib Dems and other parties is they've accepted the Farage and Bader not framing that everything all Rd. lead back to immigration. And you have to actually reframe the fight.
The British public, like the American public, like the French public, they're angry, they're pissed off. You have to give them somewhere to direct their anger. The right have decided to direct that anger towards migrants and the left are saying actually maybe direct that anger towards the people who have really screwed you over.
The point 1%. And when it comes to Gaza, I mean, you know, Gaza has fallen off the international news agenda to a large degree since, except today, except today, that time of recording where we've just seen Jared Kushner unveil the the the Riviera of the Middle East as they always saw it with mock ups of skyscrapers along the beach and little housing complexes for the Garzans through the strip.
You know, a, do you think, do you think it's going to happen now in a way that perhaps you didn't before? Because they seem to be pressing ahead with it and and will they get away with it? When you say the houses for the Gazans, of course these are the gardens who are allowed to stay behind, right? This is a plan for ethnic cleansing. Everyone knows this.
When I went on Piers Morgan to go back to our Morgan exchange, one of the things he said to me back in his very pro Israel time, he's moved a bit was well, you know, they're fighting terrorism. What else do you think they're doing? And I said they're trying to depopulate Gaza. And at the time, to many on the right, many in mainstream media who hadn't heard this argument sounded like a conspiracy theory. But the Israelis have made that very clear.
You know that Channel 4 News has done excellent reporting from Israel, interviewing Israeli politician to a very, very open about the fact that their goal is ethnic cleansing and the depopulation of Gaza. One of the great failures, Christian of mainstream media, and I'm going to exempt Channel 4 News from this is the inability to actually just report what Israelis are saying, right? People like me sound like some crazy person saying ethnic cleansing. You can't say ethnic cleansing.
You can't say genocide. Well, listen to what Israeli politicians say. The Israeli media is more honest than a lot of the American and British media when it comes to Israel. So just listen to what Netanyahu and his cabinet ministers are saying and it's very clear what the goals are Always been Listen to what Jared Kushner has always been saying. He talked about the Riviera and the Gaza a while ago. Donald Trump loves talking about real estate. By the way, Jared Kushner is not
an elected official. He's not even an appointed official in the first term. He was an advisor in the wife. He's just a private businessman. And the son-in-law of the president, how is this not to go back to the word you used or you were worried about me using corruption? How is this not corrupt morally, if not financially for the son-in-law of the president? Where are we in some kind of Banana Republic? The son-in-law of the president
is leading on this issue. He stands potentially to gain, like all Trump family members from whatever deals his family's been invested in settlement businesses in the West Bank. I know years ago, he's so close to Netanyahu. Christian, let me just tell you, listen to this. When Jared was a boy, Benjamin Netanyahu just come and stay in his father's home in New Jersey. I think it was New Jersey.
He used to stay and he used to sleep in Jared's bed, not with Jared in it, Jared to sleep in another room. But Jim Benjamin Netanyahu used to come stay in their house. That's how complicit these people are. This idea that this board of peace has any interest in peace or justice or ending an occupation or helping the Palestinians. There are no Palestinians on the executive board, Krishnan, and they've invited Netanyahu to be
on the board. Can you imagine if we had a Board of peace in Ukraine and international Board of peace and we invited Putin to be on the board of peace? But do you think it will happen because there was always there's always a temptation with a lot of these statements Trump makes initially to go, well, that's not going to happen. You know, when he first mentioned Greenland, everyone says, well, that's, you know, there's nothing.
He's forget Greenland and then suddenly it's back and and you kind of think, well, they look like they actually want to build this. No, I take him seriously on the things he's obsessed with for sure. Like I said, I take him seriously when he says maybe we maybe we should cancel elections. I take that seriously. I don't think that's a joke. Yes, of course it could happen. I, I, you know, I'm not going to get into the predictions business, but it will come at
great cost. I mean, the Palestinian people are not just going to roll over. I think one thing we've learned over the last 70 years and certainly over the last two years is that the Palestinian people are resilient people. They've gone through occupation, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, genocide now and they haven't given up. Why would they? There are people who deserve freedom and self determination like any other people in the
world. And the idea that you're just going to empty out Gaza, I mean, they've made it unlivable. Trump himself said it's uninhabitable, which is one of the definitions of genocide, you could argue. And so yes, it will be very difficult. Will they try and get rid of everyone? I'm sure they will. Will they succeed? Let's see, I'm one of these people to go back to your question about journalism and activism.
I'm one of those people who's going to try and persuade people to see what's happening, try and keep Gaza on the news agenda and make sure people know the injustice is happening there and the corruption that's happening there. What the hell is Tony Blair doing there, Krishnan? What the hell is Tony Blair doing in on a Palestine board of peace? Tony Blair should be at The Hague. He was a failed Middle East
envoy. He caused more bloodshed in in the Middle East than most politicians of our lifetime. And the idea that he he's involved in this just tells you everything you need to know. Tony Blair and Jared Kushner are not going to bring peace to the Middle East. Well, on that note, Mehdi Hassan, we must leave it there. Thank you very much indeed for joining us to share your ways to change the world. You can watch all of these interviews on the Channel 4 News YouTube channel.
Until next time, bye bye.