
Mehdi Hasan on Being a Muslim Immigrant in Trump’s America
From The Beinart Notebook by Peter Beinart
April 19, 2026 · 10 min
About this episode
Mehdi Hasan discusses his experiences as a Muslim immigrant and the challenges of reconciling faith with progressive principles in America.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit peterbeinart.substack.com Our guest is Mehdi Hasan, formerly of MSNBC and now founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo . Mehdi isn’t only one of the most important progressive voices in American media. He’s also a Muslim who cares deeply about his faith, and about reconciling it with his progressive principles. For several years now, we’ve held a running conversation, mostly in private, about what it means to be a progressive Muslim, or a progressive Jew, when many who speak for our faiths scorn the principles of human equality, and when white Christian nationalists run the United States. I’m grateful we had a chance to continue that conversation in public. Other topics include… Mehdi’s upbringing why the mainstream media is so docile drawing the line on who he will or won’t engage with distinguishing between Zionism and Judaism and confronting those who don’t distinguishing between real antisemtism and false accusations Mehdi’s influences
People in this episode
Host: Peter Beinart
Guest: Mehdi Hasan
Topics covered
- Muslim identity
- progressive values
- media criticism
- immigration
- antisemitism
- Zionism vs Judaism
Keywords
- Mehdi Hasan
- Muslim immigrant
- progressive Muslim
- Zionism
- antisemitism
- media
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: MSNBC, Zeteo
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