Mehdi Hassan-25 Political Influencers to Watch in 2024

An election-year guide to some of today’s most noteworthy political voices online-Mehdi Hasan, a prominent British American journalist known for his incisive commentary and fearless questioning of his interviewees, has worked for Al Jazeera, The Intercept, and the Huffington Post UK; currently, he writes a column for The Guardian. His work often focuses on issues of social justice, foreign policy, and politics. The Mehdi Hasan Show began on Peacock in October 2020 and was hosted on MSNBC from March 2021 to January 2024. Hasan, who is Muslim, frequently critiqued Israel’s war on Gaza, and late last year the network announced it was canceling his show, a move that drew fierce backlash. An anonymous source close to the situation at MSNBC told The Washington Post the decision was unrelated to his commentary about Israel and instead the result of a “broader restructuring” of the network’s weekend lineup. In February, Hasan (@mehdirhasan on social platforms) announced he was starting a digital media company, Zeteo. He had launched the venture, he explained to CNN’s Jake Tapper, because he wanted to “be able to speak in a blunter fashion” than most people in media do, and offer a platform for others to do the same. “My purpose as a journalist-and in life?-is to make people in power uncomfortable,” he told TNR. “Everything else is noise.”