Mehdi Raza Hasan (born July 1979) is a British-American political journalist, broadcaster and author of Indian descent. Hasan has been the host of The Mehdi Hasan Show on Peacock since October 2020 and on MSNBC since February 2021. In 2015, Hasan moved to Washington, D.C., United States, to work full-time for Al Jazeera on UpFront and host the Deconstructed podcast produced by the online publication The Intercept from 2018 to 2020. Hasan is the author of Win Every Argument, and the co-author of a biography of Ed Miliband and was formerly the political editor of the UK edition of The Huffington Post and the presenter of the Al Jazeera English shows: The Café, Head to Head and UpFront. Early life and education Mehdi Raza Hasan was born in Swindon to immigrant Indian Hyderabadi Shia Muslim parents from the city of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, South India (now in Telangana). Hasan was privately educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, a day independent school for boys at Sandy Lodge in the Three Rivers District of Hertfordshire, near the town of Northwood in North West London. He then attended Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), and graduated in 2000. Career Hasan worked as a researcher and then producer on LWT's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, with a brief period in between on BBC One's The Politics Show. Following this, he became deputy executive producer on Sky's breakfast show Sunrise before moving to Channel 4 as their editor of news and current affairs. He was appointed senior editor for politics at the New Statesman in late spring of 2009, where he stayed until May 2012, then becoming political director of The Huffington Post website. Hasan became a presenter on Al Jazeera's English news channel in May 2012. Hasan has appeared (six times) on the BBC's Question Time programme, and the Sunday morning programmes The Big Questions and Sunday Morning Live. In 2013, Hasan took part in a debate at the Oxford Union to consider whether Islam is a peaceful religion. Hasan, who is an Ithna’Asheri Shia Muslim, vouched for Islam as a religion of peace, citing political and cultural reasons for violence in Muslim majority countries, as opposed to holding the religion of Islam responsible. In the vote on the motion, the house affirmed with Hasan and the other proposers that Islam is a religion of peace with 286 votes in