the Daily Mail was, among other accusations, "Muslim-smearing". The paper responded by claiming that he had applied to write a column for them in 2010, praising their editorial standards and some of their positions. In December 2019, Seth Meyers called Hasan's interrogation of Trump supporter Steve Rogers "the template for talking to people within the Trump-sphere." In November 2020, the Daily Beast said "The Mehdi Hasan Show has fast become one of the most satisfying nightly news programs in America." In a March 2021 interview with Esquire, Hasan said "journalists should have a bias in favor of democracy" and if journalists are "not pro-democracy, then what is the point of being a journalist?" Abortion Hasan has defended his anti-abortion views in print, writing "What I would like is for my fellow lefties and liberals to try to understand and respect the views of those of us who are pro-life" in an October 2012 online column for the New Statesman. Hasan argued that the issue of abortion "is one of those rare political issues on which left and right seem to have swapped ideologies: right-wingers talk of equality, human rights and 'defending the innocent', while left-wingers fetishise 'choice', selfishness and unbridled individualism." He later regretted expressing himself in this way. However, the article gained much attention on Twitter and Hasan debated the issue with Suzanne Moore on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Telegraph blogger Brendan O'Neill thought both Hasan and his pro-choice opponents shared the modern left's "instinct for paternalism" which contrasted, he asserted, with the pre-occupations of radicals a century ago, an era in which such figures, Hasan asserted, often opposed abortion. Meanwhile, Labour MP Diane Abbott thought that "any feminist, worth the name, knows that control over [our] own bodies is ground zero for every educational, social and economic advance that women have made in the last century". Cristina Odone wrote: "...there is no greater intolerance than that of the so-called tolerant liberals: pro-choice advocates will not allow any discussion of abortion that questions the status quo. Poor Hasan ventured into terrain marked "taboo". In a 2020 series of tweets, Hasan expressed regrets for "having expressed offensive & illiberal views in the past on everything from homosexuality to abortion" and stated that they were views he no longer holds. Pakistan Hasan has been critical of the human rights situation in Pakistan, expressing disapproval of the country's treatment of minorities