The presidential primary season kicks off next year and there is one big question hanging over the Democratic party: the rust belt. For the last quarter century, it was solid blue, but Donald Trump changed that. And as 2020 approaches, the Democrats find themselves wondering, is there a candidate who can take it back? Could Sen. Sherrod Brown, a left-wing, pro-labor Ohio senator who won a third term these past midterms, be the Democrats’ answer to Donald Trump in 2020? Mehdi Hasan is joined by S...
Dec 06, 2018•35 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast U.S. media have been busy painting a very rosy picture of former president George H.W. Bush since his death last week. While he did stand up to the gun lobby, sign the Americans with Disabilities Act, and peacefully end the Cold War, he also ordered the Desert Storm operation in which 88,000 tons of U.S. bombs were dropped on Iraq, killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and destroying civilian infrastructure. The Intercept’s co-founder Glenn Greenwald joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the difference bet...
Dec 04, 2018•38 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast The United States Senate voted Wednesday afternoon to advance a resolution withdrawing all unauthorized U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen, which has created, according to the UN, the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe and killed more than 50,000 people. It’s the first time a majority in either chamber of Congress has endorsed a bill which calls for an end to U.S. involvement in the Yemen war, a war which would not be happening if it weren’t for U.S. involvement. Mehdi Hasa...
Nov 29, 2018•31 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Donald Trump lies consistently, at all times of day. He even gets up in the middle of the night to tweet, and that tweet almost always turns out to be a lie. A lie is produced each time his lips move. And this serial, non-stop, 24/7, pathological lying is a danger to democracy because Trump, in classic autocrat fashion, wants us to just accept that the only truth we need worry our little heads about is the truth that comes straight from his mouth. Daniel Dale, the Toronto Star’s Washington corre...
Nov 21, 2018•35 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Impeaching President Donald Trump is a pipe dream, many say. Nancy Pelosi, who’s expected to be the new House speaker, isn’t keen on going for impeachment, nor is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — and a lot of people aren’t either because they’ve been misinformed and misled. Contrary to common perception, the president does not need to commit a crime in order to be impeached. Allegations of collusion aside, Trump is guilty of impeachable crimes and misdemeanors, such as the violating the em...
Nov 15, 2018•30 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast The most important, historic, and consequential midterm election of our lives is over. It wasn’t quite a blue wave, but the Democrats, while unable to win the Senate, did, as predicted, take back control of the House for the first time since 2010. Mehdi Hasan is joined by Rep. Barbara Lee, MSNBC host Chris Hayes, and Women’s March Co-Chair Tamika Mallory to digest the election results and discuss voter suppression — and where the democrats go from here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...
Nov 07, 2018•44 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast The midterm elections are almost here and they’re haunted by the spectre of loyal Trump voters. Two years ago, white, working class voters swept Donald Trump into office as a way of expressing their anger over economic injustice, but a range of studies published since then have found that it was racial resentment — not economic anxiety — on the part of white voters that put Trump in office. In his new book, “Identity Crisis”, John Sides marshals extensive evidence to show that it was white ident...
Nov 01, 2018•41 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Over the past few days, 11 people were massacred in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the country’s top Democrats have been targeted with pipe bombs, and two black people were executed in a grocery store in Kentucky. Contrary to Donald Trump’s warnings, terrorists weren’t coming from Mexico or Syria; they were here in America, and some of them attended his rallies. Trump, of all people, shouldn’t be shocked by the rise of white nationalism and antisemitism in America: he has repeatedly retweeted white ...
Oct 29, 2018•30 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast If the media is to be believed, the United States is about to be overrun by a horde of terrorists and criminals from Central America. It’s a distraction from what has really been an immigration crisis at the border: the so-called separation of migrant children from their parents by the Trump administration. According to the latest official numbers from the Trump administration, at least 66 children are still “separated” from their families and being held in detention centers. Mexican-American jo...
Oct 25, 2018•29 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast The United States and Saudi Arabia have been best friends since 1945, even after 9/11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers who brought down the Twin Towers turned out to be Saudi nationals. Their alliance still holds strong, despite the sudden disappearance and likely murder of Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Much of this has to do with Donald Trump’s financial interest in Saudi Arabia, as well as the fact that he and Israeli prime minister ...
Oct 18, 2018•28 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast In this special, live-recorded episode of Deconstructed, Mehdi Hasan is joined by a panel of leftist lawmakers and advocates, Sen. Jeff Merkley, California Congressman Ro Khanna, CNN political commentator Symone Sanders, and Nina Turner, the founder of Our Revolution . Together, these panelists discuss whether the Democrats will take a left turn and use their impending House majority to not just restrain or even impeach Donald Trump, but to push for a bolder, more progressive agenda? Hosted on A...
Oct 11, 2018•55 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed today as Supreme Court Justice of the United States in a 50-48 vote in the Senate, despite three different allegations of sexual assault and misconduct and wide opposition. The message of today’s vote is clear: If you’re a rich, white, conservative man in America, you will not be held accountable for your actions. Mehdi Hasan is joined by The Intercept ’s Senior Politics Editor Briahna Gray and D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grim, the former advisor to Al Gore and Bill...
Oct 06, 2018•45 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Riz Ahmed became the first actor of South Asian descent and the first Muslim to win an Emmy last year when he picked up the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in A Limited Series for his starring role in the HBO drama, The Night Of . In the brand-new Marvel movie Venom , he plays the villainous Carlton Drake opposite Tom Hardy’s titular anti-hero. Off the big screen, he uses his unique platform to bring attention to issues from the lack of minority representation on T.V. to Islamophobia and racism...
Oct 04, 2018•28 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault by three different women, one of whom said that she witnessed his efforts to inebriate girls so they could be “gang raped.” His first accuser, Christine Ford, recalls thinking that he may “inadvertently” kill her while trying to attack her and remove her clothing. Deborah Ramirez, his second accuser, says she had felt “mortified.” The Intercept reporters Ryan Grim and Naomi Klein join Mehdi Hasan to discuss the implications...
Sep 27, 2018•32 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast After decisively beating five other candidates in last month’s primary race to represent Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional district, Ilhan Omar is on her way to becoming the first African refugee and hijab-wearing Muslim woman to serve in Congress. She joins Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib in a wave of progressive women taking the Democratic Party establishment by storm. Before coming to the U.S., Omar spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp, having fled the civil war in Somalia. She ...
Sep 20, 2018•29 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Since a Saudi-led coalition began bombarding Yemen in March 2015, more than 10,000 people have been killed and over 2 million displaced. While most U.S. politicians would prefer to pretend otherwise, all of this is happening with the cooperation and direct support of the United States. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is one of the few lawmakers who has taken a loud and consistent stand against the war. He joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the ongoing conflict — and whether it can be ended. Hosted on ...
Sep 13, 2018•27 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast On Tuesday the Supreme Court handed the president a huge victory in Trump v. Hawaii , the case challenging the legality of his executive order barring citizens of five Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The verdict upholding the ban generated a wave of condemnation across the country. On this special episode of Deconstructed, Mehdi Hasan speaks with Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American ever elected to Congress, as well as Yemeni-American community organizer and anti-b...
Jun 26, 2018•29 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Barack Obama was one of the most polarizing presidents of the modern era. To the right, he was a weak, feckless leader and to the left, he was the Deporter in Chief and Drone President who bombed villages in Pakistan and assassinated Americans without trial in Yemen. While Obama did embrace the U.S. empire — killing civilians and selling weapons to some awful regimes — he also pulled some of the biggest diplomatic breakthroughs of our time, negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, getting the U.S. to ...
Jun 22, 2018•27 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast This week Donald Trump became the first U.S. president to meet with a North Korean head of state, raising the prospect that the repressive dictatorship might finally take steps toward dismantling its nuclear program. But there’s something missing from the conversation: the fact that the United States itself is sitting on the world’s most powerful stockpile of nuclear weapons. Beatrice Fihn, the director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and William J. Perry, Secretary of ...
Jun 15, 2018•30 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast Between appointing his daughter and son-in-law to senior White House positions, engaging in business deals with foreign governments, and “encouraging” diplomats and dignitaries to book rooms in his hotels, Donald Trump’s administration is setting new records for executive malfeasance. When corruption is so widespread, so pervasive, so ingrained in the political culture in Washington, D.C. and the executive branch, how do you push back? Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren joins Mehdi Hasan in an ...
Jun 08, 2018•30 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast The Trump administration is targeting migrant and refugee children to achieve its policy goal at the border, crack down on immigration, and placate its far right base. More than 700 children have been forcibly separated from both parents at the border and more than 100 of them have been under the age of 4 since last October, according to official figures obtained by the New York Times. Democratic representative Pramila Jayapal, an immigrant herself, joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the Trump adminis...
Jun 01, 2018•29 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Five years ago this week Edward Snowden absconded to Hong Kong with a trove of documents detailing the extent of the U.S. government's global and domestic surveillance programs. Snowden’s leaks helped expose the astonishing reach of the U.S. government's global and, crucially, domestic surveillance programs. More recently we’ve discovered it isn’t just big government that poses a massive threat to our privacy, but also big tech. On this week’s episode of Deconstructed, Edward Snowden joins Mehdi...
May 25, 2018•23 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Two Palestinians join Mehdi Hasan to discuss U.S. coverage of Jerusalem and how to get prominent Democratic politicians to take the Palestinian struggle for freedom seriously. Rula Jebreal was raised in East Jerusalem and is an academic and foreign policy analyst. Linda Sarsour, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from the Occupied West Bank, is the co-chair of the Women’s March and the former director of the Arab American Association of New York. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...
May 18, 2018•29 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast The president announced withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday, citing Israeli intel purporting to show that Iran has resumed its nuclear weapons program. Does this move us one step closer to war? Has John Bolton taken the helm of U.S. foreign policy? On this week’s Deconstructed podcast, Tommy Vietor, who served as spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council under President Obama, breaks down Trump’s latest and scariest political gambit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy ...
May 11, 2018•30 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Comedian and Hollywood director and producer Judd Apatow joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the U.S. media’s cozy relationship with politicians. Rather than defending Michelle Wolf as she ridiculed the brazen dishonesty of the President and his equally deceitful staff, journalists at the White House Correspondents Dinner threw her under the bus and stood for the people in the White House who abuse them every day instead. The U.S. media’s friendly relationship with politicians was bad enough under prev...
May 04, 2018•29 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are demonstrating and calling for their right to return to their ancestral lands for the fifth Friday in a row. Israeli forces have been responding with force, killing at least 40 demonstrators and wounding thousands. On episode 6 of Deconstructed, two Israeli activists join Mehdi to speak out against Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians. Hagai El Ad is the executive director of B’Tselem and Avner Gvaryahu is a former Israeli paratrooper and current executi...
Apr 27, 2018•29 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Comedian Hasan Minhaj is best known for his work as a correspondent on The Daily Show and his acclaimed stand-up special "Homecoming King." This year he’s slated to host his own talk show on Netflix, and on this week’s podcast he and Mehdi Hasan discuss comedy and free speech in the Trump era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 20, 2018•27 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast The war in Syria has seen seven long years of bloodshed, terror, and foreign interventions. And now, once again, the alleged use of chemical weapons has prompted president Donald Trump to threaten bombing the Assad regime. But on what authority, and with what plan? This week on Deconstructed, Mehdi Hasan speaks to Rep. Barbara Lee, one of the most consistent voices against U.S. military interventions on Capitol Hill. And with former Obama adviser Ilan Goldenberg about whether Trump is following ...
Apr 13, 2018•27 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast In her first national interview, Stephon Clark’s fiancée Salena Manni speaks out on his death at the hands of Sacramento police. She calls on President Donald Trump to take action on police violence, and responds to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who last week called Clark’s death a "local matter." And Professor Ibram X. Kendi of American University joins Mehdi to discuss how America’s history of racist ideas creates the law enforcement environment we see today. Hosted on Ac...
Apr 06, 2018•30 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast By now you’ve heard about John Bolton’s bluster, warmongering, and disregard for international law. What you probably don’t know is that Trump’s new national security advisor made implicit threats against a diplomat and his children. On this week’s show, Mehdi talks to José Bustani about that experience with Bolton 16 years ago. He also talks to State Department veteran Thomas Countryman, who served with Bolton and worries that we’re now a step closer to war with both North Korea and Iran. Hoste...
Mar 30, 2018•25 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast 
