Yes and yes, argues journalist and author Rozina Ali, as she joins Mehdi for a conversation about the history of Islamophobia and her powerful new book, Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America.

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Ali’s book examines the way Islamophobia is “manufactured and encouraged” in the U.S., tracing its roots back well before 9/11, to the 1940s. Today, xenophobic persecution is not reserved for Muslims. Ali explains how the Donald Trump administration is using vague anti-terror laws to target anyone it deems a political enemy.

Watch the full video to hear Ali break down the way “thousands and thousands” of Muslim Americans were surveilled by the FBI and undercover informants, and explore the role Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu played in shaping what we know to be Islamophobia today.

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And while you think you may already know Hunter Biden, Mehdi flew out to Los Angeles to sit down with him in person and get to the bottom of some unanswered questions, including Hunter’s influence during Joe Biden’s presidency, the genocide in Gaza, and whether he accepts any responsibility for the right-wing attacks on him and the Biden family name.

This is not one of the typical, cozy podcast chats you’ve seen with Hunter Biden. In true ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ fashion, this is a candid, challenging, and, at times, even heated exchange centered on big issues and hard truths.

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In this hour-long conversation, Hunter Biden divulges all on:

• His father enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the then president’s friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu

• The latest news about Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis

• His own battle with addiction

• His role in contributing to the right-wing “Biden crime family” narrative

• Whether he pushed his father to run for reelection in 2024

• Why he believes Kamala Harris was not always “loyal” to his father

• Whether he’s made amends with Hallie Biden, his late brother’s widow whom he dated and helped get addicted to crack cocaine

• Why he appeared on Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson’s shows

• His pick for Democratic presidential nominee in 2028

• And why he’s “always disappointed” in the Democratic Party – and thinks it was “insanity” for Hakeem Jeffries to secretly meet with Jared Kushner.

At the start of their conversation, Mehdi asks Hunter Biden if his self-description as an “open book” applies to this interview too, to which Biden responds: “It certainly does,” before adding with a laugh: “I’d like to say to the camera that I brought this on myself.”

Paid subscribers can watch the hour-long interview in full above, without a paywall. Free subscribers can watch a four-minute preview. Consider upgrading your subscription to unlock all Zeteo has to offer.

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In this wide-ranging and, at times, heated ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, Mehdi grills Pastor Douglas Wilson – the self-described Christian nationalist who Hegseth invited to preach at the Pentagon earlier this year and who also founded the network of right-wing churches that Hegseth is a member of.

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Mehdi challenges Wilson on his vision for a Christian nationalist America – which, according to Wilson, would eliminate the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote, end gay marriage, and ban non-Christians from taking office.

Here are some of the other topics Mehdi presses Wilson on:

• Whether the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation (“The actual real life U.S. Constitution is not theological at all,” Mehdi says)

• Whether a Muslim like Mehdi should be allowed to run for office

• Wilson’s controversial book on slavery, which described slavery as a “relationship based upon mutual affection”

• What would happen to U.S. states that want to keep gay marriage legal in Wilson’s vision for America (“I believe that they should be expelled from the United States,” Wilson says)

• Hegseth’s belligerent and very un-Christian rhetoric on the war on Iran

• Whether white evangelical Christians are hypocrites for supporting someone as openly sinful and un-Christian as Donald Trump

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Paid subscribers can watch the full hour-long debate to see Mehdi bring the receipts and fact-check Wilson on everything from the founding fathers’ beliefs to the definition of misogyny. Free subscribers can watch a 3-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to unlock content like this and a lot more from Zeteo.

A note from Mehdi: Usually, I would never platform someone with such hideous views on slavery, women, Muslims, and gay rights. However, because of Wilson’s proximity to Pete Hegseth and the rising influence of Christian nationalism in the White House, I believed it important to challenge Wilson’s statements with the usual facts, receipts, and journalistic rigor that Zeteo has become known for.

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These progressive House candidates all won their Democratic primaries, but they also have something else in common – they were all endorsed by Justice Democrats.

With the midterm elections less than three months away, Justice Democrats’ communications director Usamah Andrabi joins Mehdi to break down what has, so far, been a big year for progressives, and what these victories mean for the future of the left and the Democratic Party.

“The Democratic base is excited by our candidates because they are showing you don’t have to be bought and sold to be leaders for your communities,” Andrabi says. “In fact, you can’t be leaders for your community unless you are unbought and unbossed.”

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And as AIPAC continues to pour millions of dollars against pro-Palestinian candidates, the two discuss just how big of a role Gaza has played in the Democratic primaries.

“Overwhelmingly, Democratic voters don’t want to see their taxpayer dollars spent on endless wars and genocide abroad, and yet, only a minority of Democrats in Congress represent that view,” Andrabi tells Mehdi.

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1. Rehash the COVID-19 pandemic

2. Pretend to know what they’re talking about

In the last few weeks, Senate Republicans have been able to do both of these, as they relentlessly claim that the COVID-19 virus must have come from a lab in China, despite all the scientific evidence saying otherwise. Nevertheless, the GOP’s messaging has proved to be quite convincing, with the majority of Americans believing COVID-19 came from a lab.

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But here at Zeteo, we believe in cutting through the noise, listening to the experts, and hearing out reasonable people (aka, not Senator Rand Paul).

That’s why in this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ segment, Mehdi moderates a very factual and insightful debate on the lab leak theory. Leading virologist and Save America Movement science chair Dr. Angela Rasmussen argues that COVID-19 likely came from zoonotic – or natural – origins, not a lab, while Dr. Ashish Jha, who was President Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator, argues that COVID-19, in his view, likely came from a Chinese laboratory.

Here are some of the key questions Mehdi asks:

• Why Jha changed his mind on COVID-19 origins and now supports the lab leak theory

• Why Rasmussen’s own research supports zoonotic origins

• Whether Republicans have overstated the merits of the lab leak theory

• Their reactions to recent GOP misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccine and miscarriages

• How prepared – or unprepared – the U.S. is for another pandemic

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You won’t see an informed, in-depth, good-faith debate like this, on Covid and its origins, anywhere else in the media!

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“There’s one issue they [AIPAC] won’t talk about,” says Eli Clifton, co-author and cofounder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, “they don’t talk about Israel, and I think that that’s the admission from AIPAC…that their actual issue is toxic.” Clifton notes that pro-Israel super PACs could end up raising and spending a quarter of a billion dollars this election cycle alone.

But it’s not all about money, as Ian Lustick, co-author and former State Department expert on Israel-Palestine affairs, tells Mehdi. “I spoke with Blinken and Sullivan and Biden, trying to tell them what the actual situation in Israel was like. But they’re socialized psychologically not to even be able to include in their agenda of possibilities what the realities are there.”

Watch this important conversation to understand how the U.S. paved the way for Israel to become the “extreme right-wing rogue state” it is today, as Lustick puts it, how people can push back against the lobby’s influence in the U.S., and a lot more.

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Click here to buy a copy of Clifton and Lustick’s book, ‘Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power.’ And if you’ve already read it, feel free to share your review of the book in the comments below!

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Thankfully, Trump’s former White House lawyer Ty Cobb – who represented the Trump White House during the Mueller investigation back in 2017 – is not afraid to strike a different, more blunt tone.

“We’re screwed,” Cobb tells Mehdi, when asked about whether Trump’s new Attorney General Todd Blanche will attempt to discredit midterm election results.

Cobb’s honest yet brutal assessment doesn’t stop there in this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview. “Come 2028, does American democracy survive Donald J. Trump?” Mehdi asks him.

“I’m not sure they survive it in 2026,” he says.

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Mehdi also presses Cobb on his time representing the White House during the Mueller investigation, asking him hard-hitting questions that Zeteo is known for:

• “The Mueller report… lays out 10 episodes of potential obstruction of justice by Donald Trump. You don’t deny any of that, do you?”

• “When you were working for Donald Trump, did he ever ask you to obstruct justice?”

• “Do you have no regrets going to work for Trump in term one?”

Want to hear Cobb’s responses? Paid subscribers can watch the full video above, where he also explains why Trump is even more corrupt than Russian President Vladimir Putin. Free subscribers can watch a 3-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to unlock content like this from Zeteo and never hit a paywall again.

Editor’s Note: This interview was recorded before the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as the U.S.’s new attorney general.

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“No one’s had access to him for about seven months now,” Zulfi Bukhari, one of Khan’s closest advisers and a spokesman for his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, tells Mehdi. “We’ve gone to courts to try to get a bail on medical grounds…But right now we’ve had zero joy.”

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Bukhari also expresses frustration with the Trump administration, which Khan’s supporters had hoped would speak out on his behalf. “We were told that President Trump really cares about his friend, Imran Khan,” he says, adding “I think all Pakistanis are massively disappointed in the way the U.S. has treated Pakistan.”

And despite a recent Observer report that “a deal to free the World Cup-winning captain has been discussed behind the scenes,” Bukhari denies that negotiations are underway.

Paid subscribers can watch the full 18-minute interview above to hear about the latest efforts to release Khan and why his sons have still not been granted visas to visit him. Free subscribers can access a 3-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to unlock the rest of Zeteo’s award-winning content.

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New York Times’ conservative columnist Bret Stephens is of course no exception.

In this latest ‘DEBUNKED’ video, Mehdi breaks down why Stephens’s viral argument – in which he claims that calling Gaza a genocide is “farcical” – is total BS.

Watch the full video above to see Mehdi bring the receipts and show Stephens how real journalism is done.

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But the AIPAC support doesn’t stop there.

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As Mehdi breaks down in this 4-minute video, AIPAC’s super PAC – United Democracy Project – has been running ads with the exact kind of messages Haley Stevens has been asking for, despite campaign finance laws prohibiting coordination between super PACs and their preferred candidate.

Watch the full video above where Mehdi brings the receipts, unpacks the concept of ‘redboxing,’ and explains how AIPAC and Stevens might be getting away with it.

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“I’ve seen just how dysfunctional Congress has become because of the excessive partisanship that characterizes just everything here,” says Rep. Kevin Kiley – who recently left the Republican party to become an independent.

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In this interview, Mehdi challenges Kiley on his decision to leave the Republican Party, specifically asking him whether it was because he is now running for re-election in one of the five California districts Governor Gavin Newsom gerrymandered in favor of Democrats.

The interview is insightful, revealing, and at times contentious. Here are some of the areas it covers:

• Why Kiley accepted money from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Grow the Majority fundraising committee

• What Kiley makes of the Republican party’s transformation into a cult of personality around Trump (“It is not a healthy thing for democracy,” Kiley says)

• Why Kiley is against providing the Pentagon with more funding for the war on Iran

• Kiley’s previous non-committal statements on the 2020 election results (“You couldn’t bring yourself to say Joe Biden won fair and square,” Mehdi says)

• Kiley’s legislation to ban mid-decade redistricting and why he did not introduce it before Proposition 50 split up his district

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Editor’s Note: This interview was recorded before the House passed the latest war powers resolution.

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“I’ve come to the point where any sentence that tries to predict where we’re going and that has the word Trump in it is a fool’s errand,” Malley tells Mehdi. Still, building on his experience as both a lead negotiator with Iran and as President Biden’s Special Envoy for the Islamic Republic, he says “if you were an Iranian leader today, you certainly would be thinking more concretely about whether or not to develop a nuclear weapon than you have in the past. It would be a logical thing to do.”

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Malley, who describes the U.S. war with Iran as “the first worldwide globalized guerrilla warfare,” says U.S. strikes on the Islamic Republic are “violating the laws of war,” and adds that the outcome of the conflict would be “worse than where we would be if the [2015] deal was still being respected.”

The former peace negotiator also spoke about other Middle East conflicts and accountability for them on home soil, including:

• Why Lebanon’s peace agreement with Israel “will be stillborn”

• How the U.S.’s relationship with Israel and the Middle East needs to change

• Why there needs to be more accountability for former Biden officials who fueled the genocide in Gaza

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And to make matters worse, this war – like most of Trump’s claims – is based on a lie.

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Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner tells Mehdi: “I’ve seen all the intelligence. There was no imminent threat [from Iran]. And this was a war of choice.”

As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took to Capitol Hill this week to beg for a near $70 billion in additional funding for the war, Sen. Warner sounds the alarm on just how inept Donald Trump has been at handling the conflict: “There’s not been an organized, straightforward plan, and his unwillingness to come before Congress or go to the American people and say, ‘Here’s what I want to do with this war’ is crazy.”

But Iran isn’t all the two discuss. In this wide-ranging interview, Mehdi also presses Sen. Warner on:

• Whether he regrets his vote for Marco Rubio as Secretary of State

• His recent vote in favor of selling bombs to Israel while opposing the sale of bulldozers

• Whether he believes Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza

• The Sudan, Rohingya, and Uyghur genocides, in comparison to Gaza

• Why he still takes AIPAC money

• Trump’s bogus election interference claims and the ‘five-alarm fire’ about ‘corrupt’ elections

• And his position on the future of ICE.

Paid subscribers can watch the full 27-minute interview above, while free subscribers can access a two-minute preview. Consider upgrading your subscription to never hit a Zeteo paywall again!

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Sound familiar?

Jain and many of his NDTV colleagues responded by resigning in protest, and Jain now reports for the independent Newslaundry, one of the many digital outlets unabashedly holding the right-wing BJP government accountable.

In an important ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, Mehdi asks Jain what he makes of Trump’s campaign against the free press in the United States, as well as the unprecedented “complete media capture” in India, the so-called “world’s biggest democracy” – where journalists have been jailed, physically assaulted, and even killed.

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“The problem is that if promoters and owners who actually have deep pockets, who have institutional safeguards, if they don’t show spine, then newsrooms are screwed, and independent journalism is screwed,” Jain tells Mehdi.

During this timely conversation, the two also discuss:

• Pro-BJP “Godi media” outlets and the anti-Muslim propaganda they spread

• The Trump DOJ’s recently dropped lawsuit against billionaire Gautam Adani

• How the most prominent figures in Bollywood have been “brought to heel” by the Indian far-right

• The importance of independent media in the U.S. and in India, and Jain’s specific advice to U.S. journalists based on his own experiences.

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But democratic socialist and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong has a different perspective.

“This is also a state where progressivism was born and nurtured, where kindergarten was formed,” Hong says to Mehdi. “Our socialist progressive roots run deep and the people all across our state are ready to dig up those roots and build something new and better.”

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Watch Mehdi and Hong discuss her campaign, as she attempts to beat out establishment Democrats in the state’s primary and become the U.S.’s first democratic socialist governor.

Key moments from the interview include:

• What democratic socialism means to Hong (“Human rights, democracy, and fairness.”)

• The criticism from establishment Democrats that she is “unelectable”

• Why she has not walked back her previous “defund the police” comments (“It is the responsible thing to demand reform.”)

• Why she reported a Gaza ceasefire display in 2023 as a “highly antisemitic act” and why regrets doing so today and is calling out Israel’s genocide of Palestinians

• The Republican party’s likely gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany (“A traitor.”)

• Whether she will repeal Wisconsin’s codification of the controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism

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“You have these two young hoodlums, one with an M4 rifle, marching around our van, kicking the tires, wiping the windshields, telling us that we can’t leave,” says Khanna of his encounter with the Israeli settlers. “It’s very upsetting to me that the American ambassador [Mike Huckabee] isn’t looking out for American citizens.”

Khanna tells Mehdi his critics don’t want his Palestinian-led trip to set a precedent for others who might follow his lead and see what he saw, “the terrorization of the Palestinians.” Their conversation, which begins with Khanna’s retelling of the story around his detention, also includes:

• The discrimination he experienced during his trip to the occupied West Bank

• What shifted his formerly pro-Israel views to where they are today

• Why he won’t criticize Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who said he will vote against Khanna’s bill seeking to stop the fusion of Israel’s military with the U.S.

• Mehdi’s pressing of the congressman on his refusal to call for a full arms embargo to Israel

• Elon Musk’s threat to sue Khanna

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Now, in a timely interview on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ Aziz, who most recently served as speechwriter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, warns Mehdi that “the much more dangerous part of fascism is the fascists in suits.”

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“It is using the machinery of constitutional government in a partisan way to make it subservient to the political party and then to turn it against ordinary citizens, dissidents, free thinkers, journalists,” Aziz says.

Mehdi also asks Aziz about:

• Antifascist protesters being deemed a domestic terrorism threat by the Trump administration

• If he agrees with comparisons between Trump and Hitler

• Elon Musk’s role in the global fascist project

• The three most important points in his antifascist playbook

• His former boss calling Trump’s war in Iran “worth it.”

Paid subscribers can watch the full video interview above, while free subscribers can access a 2-minute preview. Consider upgrading your subscription to never hit a Zeteo paywall again.

Click here to buy a copy of Aziz’s book, Shadows of the Republic: The Rebirth of Fascism in America and How to Defeat It for Good,’ And if you’ve already read it, feel free to share your review of the book in the comments below!

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“All we hear are the people fleeing from Cuba. We don’t understand why,” Martin tells Mehdi. “We have no idea what these countries would look like if the U.S. lifted its boot on the neck of the Cuban people.”

Martin’s documentary tells the untold story of the Cuban people. “Death is the policy. Mass murder is the policy that has been stated for decades to make the Cuban people suffer and overthrow their government.”

This in-depth conversation on the consequences of U.S. foreign policy goes beyond Cuba, as Mehdi and Martin also discuss her previous documentaries, centered around Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. Mehdi asks Martin about:

• Her reaction to the situation in occupied Gaza today, where she says “the world has just sat idly by and watched genocide become the norm”

• How speaking to Israelis on the ground made her feel like “reality was flipped on its head”

• Why she believes Gaza is the “connective tissue” for so many people around the world

• How she views Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s approach as “just like the Zionists’ wing of the foreign policy establishment.”

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Mehdi spoke with renowned American historian Robin D. G. Kelley about all this in an enlightening, sobering, and at times empowering conversation that is unlike much else you’ll see out there.

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“For me, to go back to the Declaration of Independence is to go to seeing how African-Americans, Indigenous people, actually saw this document,” Kelley tells Mehdi. “When you say all men are created equal, we mean all human beings, irrespective of where they’re from.”

If you’re bored of all the surface-level conversations about the semi-quincentennial, be sure to watch the full interview above as it dives deep into topics like:

• What nationalism is and if we need to be “post-nationalists”

• How Trump’s war against birthright citizenship is a step towards his dream of a white republic

• Who independence was meant for in the Declaration of Independence

• Whether the founding fathers left Britain for freedom or to keep slavery and prevent abolition sentiments

• How the rise of fascism in the U.S. is tied to the nationwide oppression of Palestinian voices.

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But can Gallego keep that momentum going, as President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice investigates him for alleged campaign finance violations? And after facing scrutiny for his relationship with disgraced Congressman Eric Swalwell?

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In this exclusive and wide-ranging ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, the senator discusses it all with Mehdi, and says the Trump administration is targeting him because they are “afraid” of him. Gallego also lays out his populist vision for taxing the rich, warning that the U.S is fast becoming a country “that is largely led by, really, oligarch families.”

Here are the other major topics Mehdi and Gallego discuss in the interview:

• Gallego’s insistence on limiting all billionaires’ influence over politics, including the Soros family

• Whether the senator would vote to cut aid to Israel

• The senator’s record on immigration, including voting for the controversial and draconian Laken Riley Act

• Gallego’s plan to ‘tear down’ ICE while also opposing the slogan ‘Abolish ICE’

• What the victory of democratic socialists in Democratic primary races in New York and Colorado mean for the party

• Whether he will consider running for president in 2028.

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