Don’t expect to see MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan appearing on Fox News anytime soon.
On the latest episode of Mediaite’s “The Interview” podcast, released Thursday, Hasan said he has turned down offers to be a guest on both Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham’s prime time Fox News shows. And he revealed why he doesn’t want to be “any part” of the widely watched conservative network.
Hasan told Mediaite editor-in-chief Aidan McLaughlin his primary reason is not wanting to legitimize the network, whose prime time personalities in particular push conspiracy theories and stump for ex-President Donald Trump.
“There’s something called a hygiene test,” Hasan explained.” You have to have a hygiene test in your personal life and your career. And for me, Fox News doesn’t meet that hygiene test.”
“I can’t go on a channel that pumps out what is akin to white nationalist propaganda every night, COVID denialism with tens of thousands of people, including friends of mine, who passed away,” Hasan continued. “I can’t go on a channel that, you know, demonizes Muslim women who are in Congress as somehow un-American or anti-American.”
Hasan described Fox News’ prime time shows as “just propaganda.”
“During the Trump era it was state TV. And now it is just, you know, pushing, it’s QAnon adjacent,” he said. “You look at Tucker Carlson now basically carrying water for the QAnon conspiracy, which the FBI thinks is a domestic terror threat. So no, I don’t want to be part of any of that.”
Listen to the full episode below. Hasan’s comments on Fox News start at the 25-minute mark: