Episoder
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In 2023, Humza Yousaf made history when he was elected as Scotland’s first minister, making him the first Muslim leader of a Western democracy. Yet, that term was cut short this past spring after Yousaf was forced to resign from the post, as his coalition government fell apart.
Since then, Yousaf has remained a backbench member of the Scottish Parliament.
However, in this exclusive interview with Zeteo in London, Humza Yousaf announces that he will not be seeking re-election to the Scottish Parliament in 2026, telling Mehdi that it’s time for him to “step away from frontline politics.”
“I think the time is right for me to step down, step away from frontline politics and make way for the next generation of elected members,” Yousaf says to Mehdi.
In this wide-ranging interview, the former leader of Scotland discusses his fallout with the Green Party earlier this year, which ultimately led to the collapse of his coalition government, saying that terminating the power-sharing agreement with the Greens was, “the right thing to have done.”
“My successor is no longer encumbered with that deal, [he] can make decisions in policy that he wants to take forward in our country's interest without having to negotiate and compromise with the Greens. They can do that on an issue by issue basis, which I think is the best way to do it,” Yousaf says.
Yousaf also discusses the Middle East with Mehdi, telling him that the UK Labour Party is complicit in Israel’s genocide on Gaza.
“There's no doubt in my mind at all they are complicit. And I hope and pray that I live to see the day that all of those who are complicit are held accountable for these crimes,” Yousaf tells Mehdi.
Mehdi asks Yousaf about his feud with billionaire Elon Musk, with the former first minister reiterating why he thinks Musk is, “one of the most dangerous men on the planet.”
Yousaf also sounds the alarm about reports that Musk has been considering donating to the hard-right Reform UK party (Musk has denied these reports).
Watch the full exclusive interview above to hear Mehdi and Yousaf also discuss the rise of Islamophobia and the UK race riots from this past summer, his party’s catastrophic performance in the UK’s general election this year, and the Pakistani government’s continued imprisonment of former prime minister Imran Khan.
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President-elect Donald J. Trump has once again revealed his blatant disregard for the US Constitution, touting his plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.
Of course, Trump being Trump thinks he can end it all by himself, via simple executive order – rather than the required constitutional amendment. But, as Mehdi points out in the video above, Trump not only would be defying the plain text of the 14th Amendment, he would also be going against over 100 years of judicial precedent.
Watch the short video above to see Mehdi rebut the right-wing critics of birthright citizenship, dismantle Trump’s lies on this issue, and brings receipts dating all the way back to the 1860s.
Paid subscribers can comment below.
Check out some of our other stories from the past week:
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The United Nations’ Special Envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, joins Mehdi Unfiltered to discuss the country’s new leadership, the path forward, and the UN’s role in it all. Addressing the latest attacks by Israel on sites within Syria, as well as the Israeli military incursion into the buffer zone next to the occupied Golan Heights, Pedersen tells Mehdi that these are illegal under international law.
“The message to Israel is that this needs to stop. What we are seeing in the Golan is the violation of the 1974 agreement. This is a very serious issue.”
Given the UN has listed the Nusra Front as a proscribed terrorist organization, and given Abu Muhammed al-Jolani and his Nusra Front spin-off Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive against Assad and now controls much of the country, Mehdi asks Pedersen about the UN’s approach towards HTS going forward.
“This creates obviously challenges and I have been very open when it comes to this… The messaging coming out so far has been good… What we now need to see when they are in Damascus, and of course, they are not alone in Damascus, is that this vision is actually implemented.”
A precursor to opening a political pathway for such groups will of course be changing their “terrorist’ designations, something that Pedersen says he is willing to take to the UN Security Council.
“My message to the Security Council will be, yes, it's time to have a deeper look at this and see if it's possible to delist. But as I said, only if these things happen.”
Given Pedersen’s six years as Special Envoy for Syria, Mehdi also asks about the UN’s role over the last 14 years.
“We all failed the Syrian people,” Pedersen responds “and the United Nations, for many, will be the face of that, and we have to take responsibility for that.”
Watch the full interview above to hear why Pedersen is cautious in his hope for Syria, and the steps he believes need to be taken to see “Syria developing now, in the next days, weeks, months and years ahead of us.”
Please do consider also becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo to support our independent journalism and make Zeteo the go-to place for exclusive interviews with high-profile guests such as this one!
In case you missed it, here is Zeteo’s interview with a former child prisoner of Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison:
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Meet rising Democratic Party star Anderson Clayton. At just 26 years old, she is the youngest-ever state party chair, representing the Democrats in the red state of North Carolina. But despite electing Donald Trump in the 2024 election, North Carolina’s red days may be soon behind it.
Democrats secured the races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state in this election. They even won enough seats to end the Republican supermajority in the state legislature.
So why did voters elect both Donald Trump and Democrats, at the same time, in November’s elections?
“I don’t think that a political party defines how somebody is going to vote on the ballot. I think that they are looking for a person right now, and that’s why it matters the types of candidates that we run,” Clayton tells Mehdi in this wide-ranging interview.
While Democrats are playing the blame game on how Kamala Harris lost the election, Clayton says, “I don’t think anybody’s a lost cause. I actually think after this election cycle, we should be looking at every single person as somebody we're talking to.”
But it’s not just talking to voters that’s key for Democrats moving forward. “We need to run young people,” Clayton explains. She continues, “They're 60% more likely to vote for a young person on the ballot regardless of what political party that they're affiliated with. And I think that we have to look at young people as a voting bloc that wants to see themselves represented.”
Many young voters aligned themselves with the Uncommitted movement this election given the genocide in Gaza. While some Democrats blame these voters for the election loss, Clayton believes that Democrats can learn something from it: “It was them using political power in the right way because it's something where it's not discouraging people from the political process. It's saying, ‘No, let's use it to have our voices heard.”’
She adds, “That's something where Democrats should be taking it and embracing it … because right now people do not want to build up the Democratic Party. It seems like people are more interested in going around it.”
Watch the full interview to hear about political messaging in rural communities, the North Carolina GOP’s attempt to curb the incoming governor’s powers, and whether she’ll throw her hat in the ring for DNC chair. Clayton also reacts to Bernie Sanders’ criticism of the Democrats.
We are making this fascinating interview free for all subscribers to watch, but please do consider becoming a paid subscriber if you’re not already!
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Like most years, New York City spent much of 2024 at the epicenter of the most pressing stories in the United States, from college campus protests for Palestine to the trial of Donald J. Trump, to the indictment of their own Democratic mayor, Eric Adams.
“One of the few things [on] the ever-growing list of things in common between Eric Adams and Donald Trump is a sense of impunity and a belief that accountability does not apply to them,” New York Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani says to Mehdi.
In an exclusive Zeteo interview, the 33-year-old Mamdani – who will be running against Adams in the 2025 New York City Democratic primaries – talks to Mehdi about calls for Adams to resign over his recent corruption charges, and whether or not the indicted mayor is trying to cozy up to Trump for a potential pardon.
“What we've seen with Eric Adams is a continued insistence that he is not going to step down. In his own words, he is going to step up. He's not going to resign, he's going to reign,” Mamdani tells Mehdi. “I think he understands that his future is tied up with the sentiments of Donald Trump towards him.”
Mamdani – a member of the Democratic Socialists of America – responds to the critics who say that it was progressives like him that not only cost Democrats this year’s presidential election, but also shrank their margin of victory in traditionally Democratic strongholds like the Big Apple itself.
“I would ask them who was running the Kamala Harris campaign, what were the policies that were being run on? Who are the surrogates?” Mamdani tells Mehdi. “You are not going to see me in any one of these five boroughs, with Liz Cheney or Mark Cuban backing away from taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers.”
Watch Mehdi’s full interview with Mamdani to hear more on why Mamdani is running for mayor, how he would have responded to the pro-Palestine student protests, and how he would uphold the ICC arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Free subscribers have access to a free preview of this interview. Become a paid subscriber to watch the full interview.
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By now, you’ve probably heard that Donald Trump has appointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency — or DOGE, a reference to the 2013 meme that has since been co-opted by a lot of crypto bros and incels.
The duo have their sights set on wiping two trillion dollars’ worth of US spending to make the government more efficient. And nothing screams “efficiency” like creating a whole new department and hiring two people to do the same job.
But as Elon Musk goes on tweet sprees about how ridiculous government spending can be, Zeteo is riding to the rescue. In the spirit of the US coming together post-election, Mehdi lays out four ways Vivek and Elon can help save taxpayer money and make the US government more efficient.
By cutting from America’s ginormous and bloated defense budget!
Watch the full video above to learn how the US could save over a trillion dollars by cutting from just one government department, but also why Musk may not be keen to do so. And, if you’re a paid subscriber, leave your own suggestions in the comments below.
In case you missed them, here are some recent Zeteo stories you might be interested in:
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What does an end to the war in Ukraine look like? Who will draw the short straw when the dust settles? And has the risk of nuclear war increased since the Biden administration allowed Ukraine to strike inside of Russia with US missiles?
These questions and many more are at the core of this debate on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ between the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia Program Director Anatol Lieven, an author on Russian and Ukraine, and the McCain Institute’s Executive Director Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official under President Obama.
“The only peace deal that's going to hold while Vladimir Putin is in the Kremlin,” says Farkas, who supports Ukraine joining NATO, is one “that includes a security guarantee for Ukraine… that he won't view any peace deal as a ceasefire and attack later.” A fair argument to make, but a dangerous one according to Lieven.
“Article Five is regarded as critical to the security of Europe… by extending it to a country that we've already said that we won't defend, we're not strengthening the effect of Article Five, we're disastrously weakening it.”
Mehdi asks both guests whether the United States has any credibility insisting on sanctions against Russia over its occupation of Ukraine, given ongoing and unconditional US support for Israel in occupied Gaza.
“I think if you are addressing each policy separately, you just say to yourself, ‘what is the right thing to do in each scenario?’” says Farkas. “You need to look at each on its merits and see whether it aligns with U.S. interests and values.”
Lieven has a very different view, and sums it up in a few words.
“This is technically called hypocrisy, and that is how it is seen in the rest of the world.”
If you are a paid subscriber, you can watch the full debate above to hear why Farkas believes we should take Putin “at his word”, and why Lieven believes time is of the essence for Ukrainian sovereignty.
Free subscribers can watch the first two minutes for free, so do please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and financially supporting Zeteo’s journalism.
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Meet Jan Egeland. He’s a giant in the world of humanitarian affairs, having held top positions across renowned humanitarian and human rights organizations over the past two decades. The former Norwegian foreign minister served as the UN’s humanitarian chief before becoming the secretary general of the respected Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Egeland was also on the ground providing relief during the Syrian Civil War and, before that, Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon. He even coordinated relief in the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
And, yet, this is how he describes what’s happening in Gaza:
“There are so many horror scenes on our watch, but Gaza is, in a way, just this indiscriminate warfare on quite a different level.”
As humanitarian groups have worked tirelessly to get aid into the area, Egeland also noted how Israel has enacted a “starvation policy” against the people of Gaza.
“Of the few trucks that make it into Gaza, which is besieged, the majority is being looted, plundered, because there is no police there,” he tells Mehdi. “The police was bombed to pieces by Israel, and Israel is giving us aid routes that are unsafe.”
Engeland asks, “How come these gangs can roam freely, loot everything, and be part of a war economy that is enriching some in Gaza, but really meaning that the vast majority are at starvation?”
He was also “not surprised” when the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Secretary of Defense Yoav Gallant last week.
“The ICC was not a court created to take African war criminals,” Egeland tells Mehdi. “It was created to take international and potential war criminals. And I'm glad they have now indicted people on both sides because there have been war crimes on both sides in this horrific war.”
Watch the full interview above to hear what Egeland, who just returned from Sudan, says about the humanitarian crisis there, and what may be in store for Gaza under a second Trump presidency.
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We know a lot about Donald Trump, perhaps more than we’d ever like to know about someone known for being hateful and racist. Given how long he’s been famous for, you’d imagine we’d seen all the layers beneath his spray tan.
But we haven’t.
“I know Donald. I've known him so well over the years, decades, during his formative years and business career and his political career,” says Donald Trump’s nephew Fred Trump III, who poured a lot of that history into the writing of his new book ‘All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way.’
Fred’s interview with Mehdi this week gives Zeteo subscribers a behind-the-scenes look into the Trump family, with incredible anecdotes about his uncle and former president, Donald Trump. From uses of the N-word to an instance where he quotes his uncle in the Oval Office saying, “These people [the disabled], the cost, they should just die.”
Trump’s rhetoric towards disabled people cuts deep for Fred, who has a disabled son of his own, and who Trump also apparently said 'should just die' in a separate conversation with Fred, three years after that first one.
Rather alarmingly, Fred also tells Mehdi that Trump’s “purpose right now” is “definitely” to get revenge on his enemies.
If you are a paid subscriber, you can watch the full interview above to hear how Fred reacted to Trump’s insults in the past, his views of the Republican Party under the leadership of his uncle, and whether he thinks his book marks the end of the relationship with him.
Free subscribers can watch the first 5 minutes for free, so do please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and financially supporting Zeteo’s journalism.
*Fred Trump III’s new book ‘All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way’ is published by Gallery Books.
In case you missed them, here are some recent Zeteo stories you might be interested in:
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President-elect Donald J. Trump sent shockwaves through the Pentagon this week, after announcing his pick for secretary of defense: Fox weekend host Pete Hegseth, who has zero experience in government.
But frankly, it’s not the lack of experience or his association with right-wing media that should worry people the most – it’s his clear love for war, war crimes, and war criminals.
With apologies to Donald Rumsfeld, he may be about to become the most extreme defense secretary in American history.
Watch the short video above to see Mehdi unpack six of Hegseth’s insanely war-mongering views and ideas, all of which are bound to break Trump’s ridiculous promise to bringing lasting peace – to the Middle East, or anywhere else!
Also, make sure to check out Zeteo’s other highlights from this past week:
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“President Biden's inaction, given the suffering in Gaza, is shameful,” Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland tells Mehdi on this week’s ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’. “I mean, there's no other word for it.”
It’s not often that a top Democratic senator and long-term party loyalist unleashes on a sitting Democratic president, but Van Hollen – who has been critical of the US’s unconditional support for Israel since October 7th – doesn’t hold back in this wide-ranging and exclusive conversation with Mehdi and Zeteo.
“If the president doesn't mean what he says,” about holding Israel to account for the lack of aid going into Gaza, adds Van Hollen, “then he should stop saying it because he looks so weak.”
For the Maryland senator, Biden has “essentially been played by Netanyahu from day one. And every time the President of the United States says ‘this is what we the United States think is in our interests, please do it,’ he gets the back of the hand from Netanyahu and refuses to take any action.”
Van Hollen also criticizes the Biden-Harris administration for failing to uphold the humanitarian aid deadline they set for Israel last month, which has now passed, and questions their motivations.
“My concern is this was a political attempt to try to send a message to voters a month ago that, ‘oh, the president really does care about the situation,’” Van Hollen tells Mehdi.
Watch the full and eye-opening interview above to hear more about Senator Van Hollen’s top concerns over a second Trump presidency, whether Democrats have alienated working class voters, and what he made of the Harris campaign touting their endorsement from Dick Cheney.
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When chaos erupted in Amsterdam between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax fans, photographer Annet de Graaf watched the violence unfold across the city first-hand.
Her footage of Maccabi fans attacking a Dutch resident went viral, and was picked up by several media outlets, who then spun a different narrative that it was the Israelis being attacked.
Headlines poured in about antisemitic attacks in Amsterdam. But these stories largely overlooked on-camera, blatant, anti-Arab racism from Maccabi supporters.
In an exclusive interview, de Graaf tells Mehdi that outlets like CNN, BBC World News, and the New York Times “told the opposite of what happened in that footage.” She adds that they erased the responsibility of the Maccabi fans behind the attacks because “the truth is inconvenient.”
Watch the video above to hear how de Graaf witnessed the violence unfold and how she’s handling the fallout from the misuse of her footage — and the threats against her from the Islamophobic far right in the Netherlands.
For more on the Amsterdam rioting, and how it was misrepresented by the mainstream media, be sure to check out academic Marc Owen Jones’s latest piece for Zeteo: Innocent Israelis, Bad Arabs? How the Media Scripted Amsterdam's Soccer Violence
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You’ve seen Piers Morgan interview Mehdi plenty of times over the past year. This week, Mehdi and Morgan flipped roles for the first time, with our editor-in-chief sitting down for an exclusive interview with the controversial British broadcaster in New York.
Their discussion starts with Mehdi offering a twist on a classic Morgan question: “Do you condemn Benjamin Netanyahu's terrorism against the children of Gaza?”
As difficult as it is for a defiant Morgan to use the T-word to describe Netanyahu’s brutal actions in Gaza, he goes even further to avoid using the G-word to describe Israel’s relentless assault on the embattled strip.
“I think to use the word genocide about what Russia is doing there is the wrong term, and I shouldn't have used it,” says Morgan.
“I look at Piers Morgan, I say here's this uncensored person, very bold, outspoken, opinionated man. He says, ‘Syria is a genocide. Burma is a genocide. Ukraine's a genocide’… Israel? ‘No, it's not a genocide,’” Mehdi says to Morgan, perhaps stunned by the latter’s new stance.
Oh, and wait until you hear Morgan’s response to Mehdi’s questioning about his amplification of the ‘beheaded babies’ lie!
Our editor-in-chief’s exclusive interview with the outspoken British broadcaster was taped a day after former president Donald Trump held a hate-filled rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, which Morgan proudly attended.
“My view of Trump has evolved a lot because I know him personally, I like him personally, some of the things he does I think are very effective, some of the things he does I think are completely wrong,” Morgan tells Mehdi.
Mehdi presses Morgan to defend his friend Trump’s insane rhetoric, unhinged behavior, and long-standing racism. Morgan, you’ll be shocked to hear, pushes back hard.
Watch the full and explosive interview above to hear why Morgan doesn’t think Netanyahu is a terrorist and doesn’t think Trump is a fascist, and what he makes of the US and UK media bias in favor of Israel.
If you are a paid subscriber to Zeteo (thank you!), this exclusive interview is available to you in full, and you can also leave your comments below. Free subscribers get a 15-minute preview of this special interview with Piers Morgan. So do consider becoming a paid subscriber today!
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We all know Donald Trump said and did a lot of racist, offensive, and Islamophobic things when he was president the first time round - and is promising to do so again if he wins a second term next week.
It seems, however, that he has not said or done enough to deter the endorsement of a growing minority of Muslim Americans, such as Imam Belal Alzuhairi of The Great Mosque in Hamtramck, Michigan.
“I never claimed that he is infallible,” Alzuhairi tells Mehdi. “I never claimed that he is a saint. I never gave him a blank check. I see him as a leader who, in our discussions, committed to supporting values that matter deeply in our community… We said these are the five points, he said I agree 100% with you.”
The imam not only stood on stage at a Trump rally in Michigan to announce his endorsement, in what became a viral online moment, but he also separately met with the Republican nominee – something the Harris campaign, reportedly, refused to do (though they have met with other Muslim and Arab groups in that key swing state).
“The other party [Democrats] does not have any time for us and does not have any regards for us as Muslims,” says Alzuhairi. “Now, they understand that… we're not in your pockets. I mean, we have alternatives.”
Mehdi, of course, pushed back on the idea that Trump can be trusted or considered “the peace candidate” or the candidate of “family values,” in the provocative words of Imam Alzuhairi.
You’ll have to watch the full interview above to hear how heated their discussion got!
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Note to Subscribers: Interested in chatting with Mehdi on Zoom TODAY? He’ll be hosting a Town Hall ‘Ask Me Anything’ where he’ll be talking about this year’s elections, voting, and taking your questions! This live online event will be at 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 10pm GMT and is exclusively for paid subscribers. Please register via the link at the bottom of this email.
“In this country, four generations on, we don’t matter, we don’t belong, that we’re still othered, and that it doesn’t matter how much blood, sweat, life you give, you’re still seen as the enemy within.” — Sayeeda Warsi
Muslims don’t matter. That’s not just the reality for a lot of Muslims living in Western countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, where Islamophobia has gone mainstream in both politics and the media.
It’s also the name of a new book from Sayeeda Warsi, the British baroness and former Conservative cabinet minister, which examines her fear and heartbreak when it comes to the way in which even the perception of being a 'Muslim’ results in dehumanization and bigotry.
Mehdi recently traveled to London and sat down for a wide-ranging conversation with Baroness Warsi on the growth of Islamophobia in the US and the UK and how Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, in the wake of the Oct 7th attacks, has resulted in further hatred directed at Muslims across the globe.
The two also discuss the state of the UK’s Conservative Party with Warsi, who served as the country’s first Muslim cabinet member, recently resigning the Conservative whip, saying her party has moved too far to the Islamophobic right.
“I think that the Conservative Party's relationship with the Muslim community is deeply toxic and flawed,” Warsi tells Mehdi.
Gaza also comes up, with Warsi condemning the UK’s support for “war crimes” against the Palestinians under both Conservative and Labour governments. In 2014, Warsi quit David Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition government in protest over the then Israeli assault on Gaza.
Watch the full interview above, it’s a great conversation. Paid subscribers can watch the full 37-minute interview, while free subscribers can watch the first 5 minutes.
Paid subscribers: Register via the link below for today’s Town Hall with Mehdi…
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With less than two weeks to go until election night, Academy Award-winning filmmaker and Michigan native, Michael Moore, talks to Mehdi about why Kamala Harris is losing voters in that key swing state.
“We're not going to ask the Muslim community to vote for the people that are funding and doing the slaughter. So that means Vice President Harris is going to lose about 40,000 Arab and Muslim votes.” Moore tells Mehdi.
To his point, Harris is already feeling the brunt of this as new polls show her lead over Donald Trump has disappeared and, although time is running out, Moore argues that the answer to the vice-president’s problem is clear.
“You don't have to do a lot,” he says. “You just have to say that when you are president on January 20th, this ends, the slaughter of civilians ends. I'm not going to continue that… I am not Joe Biden.”
Many have pleaded with the Harris campaign to break away from Biden’s policies on Gaza since she began her presidential campaign, but to no avail. Moore is disappointed with the lack of change so far, as you’ll hear him discuss in the interview.
Watch the full conversation above to hear how history could be repeating itself and what a lot of Arab-American voters are telling Michael Moore is their preferred alternative to the two-state solution in the Middle East.
If you are a paid subscriber, the interview is available in full, and you can also leave your comments below. Free subscribers get a six-minute preview of this special interview with Michael Moore. Do consider becoming a paid subscriber today!
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On this week’s episode of ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ Mehdi Hasan exposes the details of “The General’s Plan”:
"Israel enjoys such impunity on the international stage - thanks to the blind support it gets from the United States - that its political and military leaders don’t just bomb, besiege, starve, and ethnically cleanse civilian areas, they brag about it. They advertise it. They give their genocide a name. The General’s Plan."
Watch Mehdi’s monologue above to learn who Giora Eiland is, how this plan came to be and how, despite Israelis openly bragging or discussing it, there’s been very little coverage of it in Western media.
Joining Mehdi on the show is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California’s 17th congressional district. Khanna was recently part of a Congressional delegation that traveled to the Middle East and also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I think it's important for progressive voices to be in the room, and I was very, very, candid with him,” says Khanna.
Mehdi pressed Khanna on several topics, including the options the US has when it comes to holding Israel accountable and why it doesn’t use them.
Khanna said: “Should the United States have done more, and should we do more, to hold Netanyahu accountable? The answer is absolutely yes… if I were to say, look, you know, we're going to continue to not give you offensive weapons, etc., he will say you were on the losing end of that [Congressional] vote.”
Watch the full interview above to hear more from Khanna about what Democrats are and not doing in the campaign, and why he thinks Elon Musk could have been on the side of the Democrats this election.
In the show, Mehdi reminds us of the Biden administration’s terrible record so far, but also of the awful policies that Donald Trump (and the people around him) implemented in Israel and Palestine when he was president. He is joined by Palestinian-American political analyst Omar Baddar to discuss this and what a potential Trump presidency might mean for Palestinians.
“Donald Trump by the time he left office, was indisputably the most pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian president in US history. We don’t need to rehabilitate or whitewash Donald Trump in order to critique Biden or Harris,” says Mehdi.
Baddar adds that “The Biden Harris policy so far on Palestine and Israel has been just a despicable horror from beginning to end. It's been a year now of watching this genocide unfold day after day on our phones.” And, on Trump’s recent assertion that Biden is holding Netanyahu back, but that he would allow Bibi to ‘finish the job’, Baddar says: “That could be the significant escalation and flat out endorsement from the White House of Israel taking over all of North Gaza and pushing Palestinians completely out of it and beginning that process in the West Bank as well, and saying that we recognize, you know, Trump already recognized the legitimacy of Israeli settlements and what that expansion looks like.”
Listen to the full conversation above where they also cover the current situation in Northern Gaza, Trump’s anti-Palestinian track record, and why there’s even an illegal Israeli settlement named after him.
DON’T MISS THIS LIVE EVENT TOMORROW:
The F Word: Fascism, Trump, and the Threat to American Democracy
In a special event organized by Substack, Mehdi and Steve Schmidt of The Warning with Steve Schmidt will discuss the political dynamics surrounding Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, consider the broader implications for US democracy, and won't shy away from tough questions about the movement’s ideological direction.
When: Wednesday, October 23, 8 p.m. ETWhere: Only on this link, for the Substack App
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“I don't think we should be writing blank checks to any country that we're allied with. I think that's a very sensible way to conduct foreign policy.”- John Legend on conditioning aid to Israel
Last week, we shared a wide-ranging exclusive interview with John Legend that covered a lot of ground: from homelessness and criminal justice, including current propositions on the ballot in California, to the 2024 presidential election and the war in Gaza.
We thought it’s worth re-sharing the section on Gaza, Israel, and Kamala Harris in particular. That’s the part you can watch above, now available, free, to all of our subscribers. (Paid subscribers to Zeteo can still also watch the full discussion here.)
Legend answers Mehdi’s questions, from what Harris needs to do to win votes in swing states like Michigan, to the dehumanization of Palestinian children, to why more people in Hollywood aren’t speaking out the way he is now.
“They've seen people lose their agent or lose jobs from it,” Legend tells Mehdi, in a rather blunt exchange. “They're afraid they'll suffer professional consequences.” He also shares why he’s choosing to be vocal and isn’t scared of being “punished”.
It’s a great discussion, and the first time the award-winning artist has opened up in this way on Israel and Gaza. Give it a watch and let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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In this new episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi calls out Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris for her failure to win over Arab American and Muslim voters and distinguish herself from Biden when it comes to Gaza and conditions on aid to Israel.
“Just saying ‘Trump Trump Trump’ is not enough for most people; the reality is that most people, Muslims included, don’t just want to vote against something, they want to vote for something,” Mehdi says.
Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar joins Mehdi to discuss Harris’s performance among Arab Americans, telling Mehdi that Harris’s efforts to win over the Arab American and Muslim community are, “not enough.”
“You cannot do outreach to a community when you cannot deliver the thing that they are asking for. And so, unless and when that happens, I am afraid that these voters are not going to come over and vote for her,” Omar says.
Watch Mehdi’s full interview with Rep. Omar to hear the two discuss more on Harris’s strategy, AIPAC, and Omar’s own re-election campaign.
Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who managed to escape occupied Gaza at the beginning of the war, talks to Mehdi about Israel’s continued assault on the strip, as well as the US media’s failure to uplift Palestinian voices during the war.
“The only people we are seeing on TV are some officials who are giving us some statistics, some statements, condemning. But we don't get to hear the real people about whom they are talking,” Abu Toha says. “I have been trying to go on CNN and BBC, and there is no room for us to speak about our personal stories.”
Listen to the full conversation to hear more about Israel’s plans for Northern Gaza, what it’s like for Abu Toha to try to communicate with family in Gaza, and his reaction to Israel’s killing Yahya Sinwar.
Sudan
With more than 8 million people displaced, there are no signs of a ceasefire in Sudan. The genocide continues as the nation’s army fights against the Rapid Support Forces; a paramilitary group supported by a few other countries.
On the show, Mehdi interviews Sudanese artist and producer Khalid Albaih, who discusses the latest on the war and how the targeting of journalists is affecting it.
“It's incredibly hard to find any source of credible news. And that makes even the situation worse because the war became kind of a media war between the videos that the RSF soldiers shoot about themselves and the videos that the army soldiers shoot about themselves,” Albaih says.
Be sure to watch the rest of this week’s episode above. Let us know what you think and who you would like to see on the show next.
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On this week’s episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi explains the Israeli military policy driving their genocidal campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.
“The Dahiya doctrine calls for the Israeli military to intentionally, deliberately, cynically, inflict long-lasting and disproportionate damage onto the enemy, no matter how bad the civilian consequences,” Mehdi says. “AKA, exactly what we’re seeing in Lebanon now, and in Gaza for the past year.”
Why doesn’t the US media give Israel’s Dahiya doctrine any coverage? Mehdi does a deep dive into the history behind the policy, that of which mainstream media has failed to bring attention to.
To discuss Israel’s new front of the war in Lebanon, Lebanese academic and London School of Economics Professor, Fawaz Gerges joins the show. Gerges talks to Mehdi about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest message to the Lebanese people, in which Netanyahu called on the Lebanese people to, “stand up and take their country back” from Hezbollah or face the same suffering Israel has inflicted on Gaza.
“What Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition are trying to do is to instigate a civil war in Lebanon. They're calling on the Lebanese to rise up to revolt against Hezbollah, knowing full well that Hezbollah is an integral part of the social fabric [in Lebanon],” Gerges says.
Watch the full discussion above to hear Mehdi and Fawaz discuss why Israel’s military strategy is so ineffective, the killing of Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah, and how the war in Gaza could change the international order forever.
Also on the show, human rights activist Dr. Mahrang Baloch joins to tell Mehdi the story of how after being named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Next, the Pakistani government barred her from traveling to New York to be recognized by Time and attend their gala this week.
Baloch, who has been speaking out against Pakistan’s abuse and killing of the country’s Baloch minority, tells Mehdi that she was prevented from traveling to New York for the gala because the government knew she “would expose their war crimes in Balochistan.”
“For years, our people have suffered enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and unimaginable human rights violations. And the US is [Pakistan’s] biggest ally ,” Baloch says to Mehdi. “Not a single person that belongs to the Baloch community is safe.”
Listen to Mehdi’s interview with Dr. Mahrong Baloch to hear more about what the recognition from Time Magazine means to her and her minority community, as well as why other countries are turning a blind eye to Pakistan’s abuse.
After Elon Musk’s surprise appearance at a Trump rally this past weekend, Mehdi is joined by the authors of “Character Limit,” – a new book about Musk and his disastrous Twitter takeover.
"From bringing back formerly suspended accounts like that of former President Donald Trump and a variety of white supremacists and card-carrying antisemites, to then suspending accounts of journalists tracking the location of his jet using public sources, one thing is clear about Elon Musk, he is not the hero in this story,” Mehdi says. “But he thinks he is.”
Watch Mehdi’s interview with the authors, Ryan Mac and Kate Conger, to hear more about Musk forming his own echo chamber, his decisions to reduce content moderation on Twitter, and his rise into the far-right MAGA world.
Be sure to watch the rest of this week’s episode above. Let us know what you think and who you would like to see on the show next.
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