Ex-MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan deleted what he called a “poorly worded” post on X that sparked outrage on Tuesday after two people died in a plane crash at Georgia’s Covington Airport east of Atlanta.
The left-wing talking head claimed he posted “Make American Planes Crash Again” in an attempt to mock the “Make America Great Again” slogan and to highlight the spate of recent fatal plane crashes under the Trump administration.
But Hasan drew swift backlash and quickly deleted the post.
“I deleted this sarcastic quote-tweet because MAGA and Islamophobic folks are clipping it out of context and trying to ridiculously suggest I’m inciting violence,” Hasan wrote.
“I was obviously mocking the MAGA slogan ‘Make America… Again’ slogan and highlighting the shocking number of plane crashes under Trump and the FAA cuts.”
He continued: “But this tweet was in poor taste, poorly worded, and has allowed people in bad faith to call me a terrorist, with one New York Post reporter cc-ing the FBI. So I deleted it. Meanwhile, the right wants to silence all journalists while crying ‘a show free speech!’”
New York Post reporter Jon Levine indeed cc’d the FBI and resurfaced an old video showing Hasan comparing non-Muslims to “animals” and homosexuals to “pedophiles” and “sexual deviants.”
Hasan apologized for the remarks in 2019. Hasan, who was a host on Al Jazeera at the time, said he made the comments a decade earlier, adding he “deeply regretted” the “sweeping remarks about non-Muslims.”
Hasan, who is known for his radically pro-Islam and pro-Palestinian views, started his own Substack called “Zeteo” after his MSNBC canceled his namesake show and let him go in 2024.
The cancellation of “The Mehdi Hasan Show” and exit of the anchor came after he was criticized for his inflammatory comments in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ deadly terror on Israel on Oct. 7.
Hasan at the time said the Hamas assault was the result of “failed policies” by Israel and the US.
In November 2023, a month after the attack, Hasan held a combative interview with Israeli advisor Mark Regev, in which he accused the Israeli government of killing children and of spreading propaganda and false information.
Hasan’s controversial comments didn’t end there. In 2021, he rushed to defend Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who suggested the US and Israel were just as guilty of “war crimes” as terrorist groups like Hamas and the Taliban.
“Look, Americans get very upset when our nation is accused of war crimes, but I’m sorry to break this to you, our nation has done some pretty awful things abroad, and we have to be able to talk about them,” Hasan wrote at the time.
He also compared previous Israeli airstrikes against Hamas in Gaza to Russia bombing Ukraine in March 2022 in the early weeks of the ongoing European war, among other things.
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