Hasan Minhaj Turns the Tables on Mehdi Hasan

The pair test their acting skills before Hasan grills, roasts, and dunks on Mehdi as part of a deep dive into his life and career.

After his appearance on Zeteo’s ‘We’re Not Kidding’ podcast, Hasan Minhaj reverses roles with Mehdi, hosting him on his own youtube show, ‘Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know’. A lot has changed since the two last spoke, most importantly, Hasan read Mehdi’s book, Win Every Argument, and learned to bring receipts.

“It’s Thursday afternoon, you have tweeted over 70 times since Monday." Indeed, Hasan started the interview with guns blazing, firing at Mehdi’s self-admitted unhealthy relationship with social media, but it doesn’t stop there. Hasan went through Mehdi’s book line by line, Mehdi’s career interview by interview, and even went as far back as high school to a drama class presentation Mehdi gave in the 1990s on the hit movie ‘A Few Good Men’.

“You stand up in front of the entire class, and you play both the parts of Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson at the same time… can you recite the scene from memory?” With the help of a printed script to jog the mind, Hasan and Mehdi perform a hilarious reenactment of the famous courtroom scene from the film that may surprise a lot of you. (How's Mehdi's American accent?)

Between accusing Mehdi of hiding behind a “posh accent,” and claiming that he loves clout more than the truth, Hasan Minhaj also asks him about the difficulties of leaving legacy media, the Islamophobia that still exists there today, the fallout from October 7, and some of the most memorable moments from Mehdi’s career and how they came about.

Watch the full interview above to hear if anyone has ever changed Mehdi’s mind on something, why he believes access journalism is a broken model, and stick around till the end to watch Mehdi play ‘Condemn or Condone’ with Hasan.

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In case you missed it, here is our episode of ‘We’re Not Kidding’ with Hasan Minhaj:

The One Where Hasan Minhaj Meets Mehdi Hasan