WATCH: Mehdi Hasan Says He Was Ready to Dump Entire Dan Crenshaw Interview if He Didn’t Admit Biden Won
MSNBC and Peacock host Mehdi Hasan said he was prepared to dump his entire interview with Rep. Dan Crenshaw if the Texas congressman refused to admit that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election.
The hard-charging interviewer was on the hot seat this week as the subject of The Interview podcast, during which host and Mediaite Editor in Chief Aidan McLaughlin asked about the utility of interviewing election deniers.
“Do you think it’s better to not even talk to those people? Or is it is it valuable for news consumers to see them exposed?” McLaughlin asked.
Hasan said “No, I don’t think we should be platforming election deniers,” and brought up his interview with Crenshaw this past weekend, a contentious 17 minute affair, mostly on immigration.
“I spent a lot of days researching the topic. He and I had a back and forth on Twitter. I knew he would be prepared. I needed to be prepared. I spent a lot of time preparing for that interview,” Hasan said.
“But my first question was not about immigration. It was do you accept Joe Biden won the election?” Hasan said.
“He said ‘Correct.’ If he had said no, or if he had said…” Hasan continued, as McLaughlin interrupted to say “You would’ve been stuck on that for the entire interview?”
“No, I would have ended the interview!” Hasan said. “I’m very clear. I would have said goodbye. I’m not going to continue this, because I you have to have a certain level of hygiene test as a journalist.”
“This idea that, you know, they want to invert reality when we have this situation where we’re being told that hot is cold an up and down by Trump and his surrogates, then yes, I would have said there’s no point to this,” Hasan said. “What would be the value? It’s like arguing the value of arguing gravity or the moon landing.”
Watch the clip above, and check out the full episode of The Interview below.
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