'I was a big critic': Mehdi Hasan praises Joe Biden as the 'most impressive president of my lifetime'

23 February 2023

When Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, journalist Mehdi Hasan had strong reservations about the former vice president and ex-U.S. senator. Biden is a centrist, and the unapologetically progressive Hasan would have much preferred Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts or Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as the Democratic nominee.

But in an interview with The Guardian published on February 23, Hasan stressed that he has been pleasantly surprised by Biden's presidency. In fact, the 43-year-old MSNBC host praised Biden as the "most impressive" president of his "lifetime."

Hasan, originally from the U.K. but now living in the U.S., told The Guardian, "I was a big critic of Biden. I didn't think he would be a transformative president. I didn't think he would change things substantively, and yet, he did surprise me. He was much more open to the Bernie Sanders agenda. A lot of what he did was what the left wanted him to do."

Hasan, known for his work for Al-Jazeera and The Intercept in the past, spoke highly of Biden's legislative and economic achievements as well as his handling of the war in Ukraine.

The MSNBC host told The Guardian, "Joe Biden has done a lot, more than any president since LBJ (President Lyndon B. Johnson). Some might say since (President Franklin Delano) Roosevelt…. I never imagined I would say this — I was born in 1979 — I think he’s the most impressive president of my lifetime. Now, you might say that's a low bar compared to Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Donald Trump. But even compared to the two Democrats who are semi-worshipped by some in their party, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, I think Biden, objectively.… has done more."

During the interview, Hasan offered a U.S. media/U.K. media comparison. And he praised the bluntness that some U.K. broadcasters are known for.

"I'm a big critic of the British media, especially the right-wing tabloid press," Hasan told The Guardian. "But when it comes to interviews, I wonder what the U.S. reaction would be if Jeremy Paxman, John Humphrys, Andrew Neil, Jon Snow parachuted into U.S. newsrooms and started conducting interviews. It's no coincidence that one of the big takedowns of (former White House Press Secretary) Sean Spicer during the Trump years came from Emily Maitlis on the BBC. He had to go abroad to get taken apart. It didn't happen necessarily in the briefing room always."

Neil is the BBC journalist who seriously embarrassed Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro during a 2019 interview. Although conservative, Neil isn't the type of far-right Christian fundamentalist who sets the policy agenda in America's Republican Party. And when Neil criticized the GOP's abortion policy, Shapiro called him a "leftist" — a claim that caused Shapiro to be mocked and ridiculed mercilessly in the U.K., where Neil's views are widely regarded as right-wing.

Hasan believes that American broadcasters could learn valuable lessons from their U.K. counterparts.

"I also think there's a cultural thing, and it doesn't reflect well on us as Brits. We're blunter, we're ruder. Weirdly, we're less stuck on etiquette," Hasan told The Guardian. "We're the ones supposed to be the stiff upper lip; actually, no. There is an American political culture which is: that's too rude, don't go there, that’s seen as crossing a line. Some of those conventions need to be broken."

Read The Guardian’s full interview with Mehdi Hasan at this link.

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