The ideas expressed in city club forums are those of the speakers and not of the City Club of Cleveland Ideastream Public Media or their sponsors.

Production and distribution of City club forums and ideastream Public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, for we are devoted to creating conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Wednesday, May 28th.

And I'm Cynthia Connolly, director of programing here at the City Club, and pleased to introduce today's forum, which is the Civic Forum on the Islamic World.

It's an annual forum that celebrates leaders, thinkers, visionaries and advocates whose work ensures that the future of our democratic Republic is truly inclusive and multicultural.

And today's guest, Mehdi Hasan, cares deeply about the truth, democracy and the importance of free speech and journalism.

He certainly isn't one to avoid arguments.

He relishes them as the lifeblood of democracy and the only surefire way to establish the truth.

In fact, in a recent interview with comedian Hasan Minhaj, somewhat jokingly asked him if he could, quote, turn down the spice.

But it's this unapologetic approach to journalism that has made many a highly sought after expert, especially when the Times often call for his sharp, unfiltered perspectives on politics, media accountability, democratic norms and more.

As an award winning British American journalist, broadcaster and author, many left mainstream media and now serves as the founder, CEO, and editor in chief of the new media company, The Teo, which comes from the ancient Greek word for speaking out and striving.

But he is also the host of Head to Head on Al Jazeera English and the best selling author of Win Every Argument The Art of Debating, Persuading and Public Speaking.

He previously worked as an anchor at MSNBC and columnist for The Intercept and was included in the annual global list of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world.

Monitoring the conversation is Nadieen Abusada, reporter for News five Cleveland, where she covers Brook Park, Berea, Strongsville and Middle Eastern communities.

She is a proud Palestinian-American who grew up in Louisiana Bayou.

Now members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland please join me in welcoming Mary Hassan and Nadine Abu Saada.

So it's funny, we were wondering if we were going to be able to get this crowd quiet, but it's pretty clear they're excited to hear what he has to say.

Are you excited?

I'm excited.

Thank you very much for having me, Cleveland.

Pleasure to be here.

I have not been in a city that has a chandelier in the middle of the street, which was impressive arrival.

I actually just remember on the way here that I have been to Cleveland once before, which was 2016.

I came here for the RNC convention to cover that.

I don't know what happened to the guy who was running that year.

Not much has happened since.

I don't know.

A few things have happened in this city since Cleveland is in a quiet city.

But so we're going to talk about media, the state of politics and I mean, democracy.

How many days do are you staying in Cleveland?

I'm out today.

Okay.

So we're going to talk fast.

Okay.

Okay.

So we'll just start with I mean, mainstream media, you left and created didn't hesitate.

Oh, well, am I just going to butcher that one off the top?

Talk to me about what made you decide to leave MSNBC.

So I was at MSNBC three and a half years.

I joined in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, ahead of the 2020 election.

I had three and a half great years there.

I presented shows on Peacock, the streaming channel on the main cable channel.

I, I would brought my own style, I think it's fair to say to MSNBC, brought different voices and guests to a mainstream cable platform.

I had a great time there.

I always say if I do nothing else in life, if I die tonight, I can die.

Proud of the fact that Noam Chomsky once emailed me and said, Maybe in 25 years of MSNBC's existence, I've never been invited on MSNBC.

You're the only person to have booked me on MSNBC's I was All right if I do nothing else in life, I got Chomsky on American cable TV.

I left.

Yeah, I'm poor known Noam is not well.

So we send our prayers and thoughts to Noam Chomsky.

He's not doing so well.

I left in January of 2024.

MSNBC canceled to my two shows in November of 2023 and offered me a chance to stay on as a guest host and an on air pundit.

And I kind of didn't want to do that.

I kind of decided quite quickly that 2024 was going to be a huge year.

There was the situation in Gaza, horrific.

There was the election coming up, perhaps the most important election of our lifetimes in some ways.

And I just realized that I needed a platform of my own to say what I wanted to say.

I couldn't be quiet.

I couldn't kind of do the occasional show.

So really, it was a no brainer for me.

It wasn't like I left MSNBC and you know what else is out there?

Who should I go work for?

It was very, very quick.

Was All right, if not now, when?

I've done I've worked in the U.K., I've worked at the BBC Sky News.

I went to Al Jazeera International English Channel.

I went to NBC.

For me, it was like, Well, I kind of done most of the mainstream stuff that I want to do.

And now I think it's time to do my own thing.

And independent journalism is flourishing right now in the US, technology has made it much more possible.

The Substack platform that we use allows me to have a very direct connection to our subscribers.

So I went for I took a risk.

You know, friends and family said to me, What the hell are you doing?

You can't run a bath.

How are you going to run a a media company?

I you know, my eyes glaze over when I see kind of numbers and spreadsheets and how you run a business.

You know, as many people in this room, I'm sure a successful entrepreneurs know, you know, you've got to start somewhere.

And that's what I did.

And I said, let's go for it.

Let's do it.

And, you know, I'm with Kevin Costner, build it, and they will come.

And we built it.

And thankfully people have come.

So we talked backstage about mainstream media and on this called Mainstream Media.

Independent media, they're both growing for the viewer.

I mean, people in this audience that are looking at that or a new podcast, where do they find the truth?

I mean, you've talked about how you want to talk about the truth, but how does a viewer find it when everyone feels like they have their own version of it?

It's a great question.

Existential question for our industry, for our country, for our democracy.

I set up to tell you, and the reason we work with the names of terrorists, an ancient Greek word meaning to seek out, to inquire, to look for the truth.

And when a colleague suggested I said, That's it, that's perfect.

That is the mission statement.

Because, you know, a lot of people, especially on the right, sadly today, want us to believe that in some kind of post-truth environment, everyone has their own.

What was it Kellyanne Conway said in the first time you have your alternative facts.

Now, there are no alternative facts.

Up is not down.

Black is not white, hot is not cold.

And I worry that too many of our liberal media institutions, which are seen as left wing or liberal, but actually have kind of rolled over and accepted this idea that there are competing truths that everyone has their own say on.

You know, you're entitled to your own opinions, you're not entitled to your own facts.

And I think we have to remind journalists in this country there was a moment the other day when ABC News Terry Moran was interviewing Donald Trump in the Oval Office, and Trump says that he believed that killing Abrego Garcia, the man who was wrongfully deported back to El Salvador, even though a judge said he shouldn't be sent back to El Salvador, Trump said he had the words MS13 literally tattooed on his knuckles.

He obviously does not.

That was a Photoshopped image.

But Trump was convinced and Terry Moran said, we can agree to disagree.

And that for me, I'm sorry, personally, that's an abdication of journalism.

I don't think journalists should agree to disagree on the facts.

Opinions, fine facts, No.

So for me, that was vitally important.

Why I set up to tell you, and I appreciate people who've signed up for the show for that reason, we have our opinions.

Let's be clear.

We're very, very opinionated news outlets, but we also like to consider ourselves factual.

Just by the way.

Quick, shameless.

I know the the City club asked you to become members, so let me do my own shameless plug out the city club.

And thank you, City Club, for having me.

How many people in this room answer to your subscribers?

Yeah, half the room of my favorite people.

The other half shamelessly.

I'm going to say the other half will be subscribers.

By the end of tonight.

You won't get a photo or a book sign.

Just no, nothing in the series.

The Times.

But to answer your question, it is a problem today when people don't know where to go to get facts and figures, don't know where to go to get quote unquote the truth.

I think we lack media literacy.

I think some of our mainstream media organizations have let us down.

I think some of our independent startups, and I count myself among them, have also let us down in the sense that just because you're independent doesn't mean you shouldn't adhere to the same standards that journalists have always had.

Or I think we need to also diversify our sources of information.

I say that to everyone.

You know, we have a lot of bias, you know, implicit bias that we talk about.

We are not aware of our own biases.

And the only way you get out of your echo chamber, your own biases, is to read as much as you can.

So, you know, I want everyone here to be a subscriber, but I don't want you to only read the tape.

I don't want to capture the audience.

You know, Trump said in the past, Don't trust anyone.

Just listen to me.

No, I want people to diverse defy their of opinion.

As a student at university, I read everything that was out there.

I remember there was a common room for students as a 18 year old politics nerd who arrived at college.

It's like, wow, every newspaper is available every day for free.

So I would read The Daily Mail and the Telegraph and The Guardian and the Independent, and I think that's useful.

I think we need to know what the other side is saying.

And in my book, I talk a lot about knowing what the other side says and thinks, not assuming It's interesting.

People ask me that.

I always say I'm a news nerd, so I read everything.

But I also like to see how different people report it.

But it's something that really everyone should be doing.

There's also a lack of skepticism.

So I meet a lot of people and I see it.

There's a lot of brown faces, a lot of brown folks very disappointed with media coverage, for example, in the Middle East.

I know we're going to talk about that.

But what I would say to people in the community in particular is just as you are skeptical, rightly so, of your CNN's and your NBCs and your BBQ's and your ABC's, don't drop that skepticism when you go to alternative sources of media.

Be skeptical about what you're seeing on YouTube and what you're hearing on the Rogan podcast and what you're seeing on your Facebook friends chats.

Right?

Don't drop it.

Be skeptical equally towards everything, right?

That we just need to have a bit of that media literacy.

We live in a world where I'm sure people in this room, we just forward stuff on WhatsApp that we get.

It's a real bane of my life, especially brown folks.

You know, every one of you knows you're on a WhatsApp group right now where you've got some image or story or link and you go, Wow, and then you hit forward.

You don't check where it came from, you don't check if it's true.

And I think we all have a responsibility, whether journalists or non-journalists, to have some adherence to truth and basic fact checking at a time when misinformation is rife and not just rife dangerous.

Which brings me to Palestine and Israel.

How do you think this has been covered in the mainstream media?

You have criticized it before.

How do you think it's been covered and could it have been better and why?

I mean, this is another example where people are challenging misinformation.

Stories will come out.

They will come back and say, for example, the babies that were killed or beheaded, and then the White House had to pull back their statement.

And then Joe Biden said it again.

The know do I think it could be.

But of course, I look, I'm someone who became politically very aware and radicalized and I say radicalized in a kind of anti-establishment way, not in a FBI come and arrest me way.

In 2003, when the Iraq war happened, I was 23 years old and I marched against Iraq War.

And for me, that was a big moment.

I you know, I'm still obsessed with the Iraq war.

I'm still obsessed with Bush and Blair.

I saw his picture out there and and for me, that was the big crime of the 21st century.

That was the big Middle East tragedy.

That was the big media failure.

Remember, WMD is in The New York Times and Judith Miller and all of that stuff.

And I thought nothing.

There would not be a war, western Iraq and there would not be a media failure West in Iraq.

Boy, was I wrong.

Gaza makes Iraq look like a walk in the park in terms of the actual levels of human suffering that we have seen since October 2023.

And in terms of the media failures, not just in terms of reporting things that weren't true, you know, you can make an argument that fog of war and fact checking and people make it, but I'm talking about the literal dehumanization of an entire people where people simply don't count because they live in a place, they have a certain name, they have a certain background.

I look at, for example, a young Gaza influencer, 11 years old, who was killed the other day.

No real mainstream coverage.

I look at Rare, a rare moment which burst through the doctor, the pediatrician who lost nine of ten children while at work.

CNN actually did a big story on that credit to CNN, but that the level where we've just ignored the suffering over the last few years is just you want to talk about what's shocked me, Why I think it's been such a media failure is because we've been able to see it in real time.

The double standard for years.

People like me would say there are double standards.

We cover this conflict in a way.

We don't cover that conflict.

We apply this rule here, not there in this Gaza situation.

We've seen it in real time because there's a place called Ukraine.

So we have been able to see in parallel you were able to log on and see Western politicians condemn Vladimir Putin for bombing hospitals, but not condemn Israeli politicians for bombing hospitals in Gaza.

You're able to see journalists humanize people on the ground in Ukraine who are fighting for their survival, but demonize people in Gaza who are on the ground fighting for their survival.

That parallel double step and also refugees, for example.

We're very open, rightly so, to Ukrainian refugees.

But people from Gaza, no way.

So I think that double standard has played out on our screens night after night.

For the last year and a half.

You've been in multiple newsrooms.

I've been in newsrooms.

What do you think is happening in those newsrooms that's leading to this type of coverage you're talking about?

Oh, so much stuff, for example.

I mean, some of you may remember in 2022 when Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, there was a report I can't remember which one who went on TV and said something along the line, Remember, because me and Damon were Eugene who used to follow my show.

We actually laughed about it live on air.

You know, there were Western reporters going in there saying stuff like, well, these are blond haired, blue eyed white people who are having to flee.

You know, you don't see violence like this in Europe.

This is more like Iraq.

They were actually like saying the quiet part loud about the fact that, okay, we treat the Arab world and the Middle East and Africa as places where war is natural refugees.

That's just normal.

Not in Europe.

This is not acceptable in the West.

So that double standard is a racist double standard.

To be very clear about what that is, that plays out.

You know, the media is very white, to quote the former head of the BBC, hideously white, and that's been a problem.

People like you and me have tried to change that by becoming journalists and changing some of our newsrooms and adding diversity.

I know the D-word is a bad word in America right now.

Diversity is important in our newsrooms just as it is in our politics and in places like this.

I also think it's to do with the fact that the geopolitics of the region are so central to U.S. foreign policy.

Right?

There's a pressure from government whereby the United States of America is taking a very particular position for seven decades in the Middle East, on the side of Israel, which obviously wasn't the case in Russia and Ukraine.

Russia is the bad, bad guy to begin with.

So it's much easier to fall in behind Ukraine.

It's much easier for the Kennedy Center to put the Ukrainian flag lights on the Kennedy Center, but you'll never see a Palestinian flag there.

And for example, the pressure.

Right.

Let's just be clear.

I interviewed Ava DuVernay yesterday, Oscar nominated director of the 13th, one of our most celebrated female directors in this country and screenwriters.

She said she wore artist for ceasefire pin to the Oscars.

She got called an anti-Semite.

She said it very openly.

She said there is a pressure on people to not speak out on this subject.

There is a lot of pressure that anyone who's worked in the media only knows that anyone who speaks to any celebrities or journalists knows this to be the case.

Right.

So she gave the example Ava at the Oscars when No Other Land won the Oscar for best documentary.

There were celebrities in the room.

This is what she said when I interviewed her yesterday who wanted to clap, but they were almost looking around, Is it okay for me to clap?

Will I get trouble if I clap for a documentary that's just won the Oscar?

Right.

So that is the level of fear that there is in some of our newsrooms, in some of the writers rooms, in some of the boardrooms that we have in this country.

That's a huge problem.

But I do think that's changing now.

I do think Carlos has been so bad that, for example, let me just plug another interview I did.

I interviewed Miss Rachel.

For those of you with younger children, everyone knows you.

Ms.. Rachel is huge.

The biggest children's educator in the world right now.

She has spoken out in defense of Gaza's children.

She's being attacked as anti Semite as Hamas.

All this nonsense at New York Times running a ridiculous hit job on her.

And I spoke to her recently about this.

I think that I think things are changing now.

I think when people see that what Ms.. Rachel is not an anti-Semite.

Ms.. Rachel is not pro-Hamas.

She just doesn't want kids to be killed in Gaza.

I think people are understanding now that some of this language and some of this bullying, it doesn't work.

And I think you're seeing that.

I think right now as we speak today, media coverage is shifting a bit.

The Washington Post is run an op ed by my friend Shadi Hamid.

The headline is it's a it's a genocide in Gaza and we should call it out.

I can't imagine the post running that headline six months ago or even six weeks ago.

Well, then let's take it outside of the newsroom.

Do you feel like in this time where a student in Boston was arrested for an op ed we already know about the protesters.

They were taken in by ICE.

Do you feel like in the US universities that don't roll back die Harvard are having their Fed or federal funding cut?

Do you feel like the First Amendment right under President Trump is being suppressed right now?

I mean, undeniably, it's happening in plain sight.

I'm glad to be here at the City Club of Cleveland, which calls itself the citadel of free speech for over 100 years.

This is what matters now.

This is the big fight in the United States right now.

Right now, you can talk about deportations, You can talk about Gaza.

You can talk about the corruption in the administrate.

There are a lot of political issues.

And we don't need to get into party politics tonight.

But underlying all of that is the battle over free speech.

Because if you don't have free speech, you can't have a free society, you can't have a free press, you can't have free politics.

And it is astonishing now where the crackdown on free speech is coming from the party that spent a decade saying free speech, free speech, free speech.

People remember college students are snowflakes.

We need to stop all this.

Cancel culture.

Remember that I had to live that for a decade.

It was so boring, right?

But worse than boring.

We now know it was the height of hypocrisy because these guys have come in and nothing that happened under the Democrats or under previous comes anywhere close to this.

Like we were told, for example, oh, Joe Biden pressured Twitter to take down stuff during the pandemic.

Remember that the Twitter files to Elon Musk, This was censorship.

People went on TV and screamed about government censorship.

Right now you have the Trump administration locking up students for writing op eds, as you say, pressuring media organizations, suing media organizations, having the FCC investigate news organizations they don't like.

CBS is trying to settle a ridiculous lawsuit.

ABC already settled a lawsuit.

The Washington Post now says we're not going to get any updates about free markets.

The L.A. Times pulled its endorsement of Kamala Harris, like across the board, the media is bending the knee.

The free press is under assault.

And, you know, Donald Trump ended the pool situation as it currently exists.

The White House pool requirements, they've invited in freak conspiracy theorists to sit and ask questions in the middle of the briefing room.

They've cut off access to the Associated Press because they said the press had actually still called the Gulf of Mexico.

It's not the Gulf of America.

This is a kind of ludicrousness, this kind of censorship that happened on the Democrats.

Republicans will be losing their minds.

And, you know, the idea that you would arrest a Turkish student, not just arrest I don't know how many have seen the video.

It's one of the worst things I've seen this year where a bunch of masked men without ID stop a girl in a hijab on her way to iftaar.

It's a horrific video if you watch.

I don't know what I would have done if I was in that situation, if my wife or daughter was in that situation and they lock her up and the only thing she did was right open saying, I think that my university should divest from Israel, nothing else.

And the the worst part of is Marco Rubio, who was asked about this.

So the secretary of state signed off on this.

He was asked why.

He said, I'll do it again.

Pramila Jayapal asked him in Congress and he said, I'm proud.

I'll do it again.

And this is the people who said speech, speech, speech.

And I think that is very worrying.

Now, where on all sides speech is under assault on universities in Hollywood.

And does this piece in Axios today pointing out that multiple media executives are now told that journalists don't go so hard on Trump?

ABC and Disney apparently, reportedly reached out to the hosts of The View, Whoopi Goldberg and Co and say, talk less about politics.

Don't say so much about Trump.

Like, where are we living right now?

Right Where are we in Hungary?

Are we in Russia?

Are we in the Gulf?

Where are we raising me to?

My next question.

What is.

I've never seen this group this quiet.

I just want you to know, don't fall asleep.

And no offense to the chef, the food's not that good.

So that's crazy.

I'm joking.

It's delicious.

Free speech.

Well, I mean, that brings me to the next question.

What do you think the state of democracy know?

That's the very over broad question.

But what is it?

The same democracy is in this country right now with all of the changes from that to immigration to what's going on with to tariffs going up and then down first hundred days, 220 lawsuits filed.

Yes.

Against President Trump and what he's trying to show place.

So, sadly, you know, I hate to be the guy that says I told you so because I'm always warning about bad things.

I always want to be wrong.

Right.

I was on I was only Piers Morgan last week and he said, I've been I've been disagreeing with you on Gaza for over a year maybe.

And I can resist no longer.

I'm closer to your position and like, I'm not happy about that.

So yay, I persuade Piers Morgan.

I wish I'd been wrong.

I wish Piers Morgan had been right.

I wish the war had been over.

I wish everything would be fine.

I wish so many people were dying.

So I don't like to be the I told you so Guy and I spent much of last year saying this is not just Republican versus Democrat.

This is a very different breed of election.

This is not Mitt Romney.

This is not your grandfather's Republican Party.

This is Donald Trump.

And this is the MAGA movement, which will be a threat to American democracy, civil liberties, basic rights.

And that is what has come to pass, not in one year, two years, three years, but in 100 days.

Right.

Some of us were warning about what would happen to undocumented immigrants.

Even I didn't say that they were going to expel American citizens, children with cancer, like four year old child with cancer, a two year old child, American citizen expelled to Honduras while her American citizen father is trying to keep her in the country.

But I say no, she's going with her mom.

And the judge in that case, by the way, is a Trump appointed judge who said that that child likely did not receive due process.

So we're already a situation where forget undocumented, forget green card holders, American citizens are not getting due process and we're only a few months into this administration.

So, yes, democracy is on the line.

People like Chuck Schumer are saying stuff like, well, if he defies the Supreme Court, then we'll be in a constitutional crisis.

He's already defied the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court said 9 to 0.

You must facilitate the return of Cuba.

Abrego Garcia Trump says no.

In fact, Trump admitted in the ABC interview, I could pick up the phone and he'd be back tomorrow.

But he's not doing it.

So we're already defying the Supreme Court.

They're about to pass a budget bill, and people haven't noticed this.

Aside from all the cuts to Medicaid or the tax cuts for the rich they've buried in there a clause which says that you will judges will no longer be able to bring about contempt charges against administration officials who ignore an injunction.

So they're already now insulating themselves from any kind of judicial pushback, the already ignoring court decisions, and now they're trying to hobble judges further.

So if you don't have an independent judiciary, you have a Congress that has just prostrated itself to Trump and you have an executive branch that believes due process doesn't matter for certain people in this country.

A president who is mocking his birthday with a military parade through Washington, D.C., it's it's for the birthday of the US Army.

Yeah.

If you believe that I have a degree from Trump University to give you, it's his birthday and he's getting the military parade he's always wanted since he went to see Kim Jong un and said, why can't I have that?

So this is where we are as a country.

And I say we're not even six months in.

God help us a year, two years, three years.

And so it's great.

In the past you said President Trump would be worse than Biden and in and Harris.

But when talking about how President Biden responded to what's going on in Gaza, you've criticized.

Yes.

Who of them is worse for Palestine?

That's a loaded question.

Well, can you answer it in 5 minutes time?

Look, I think American politicians across the board have been bad on Palestine.

I think that there's no scenario in which the genocide in Gaza happens without American politicians of both parties arming and funding it repeatedly voting to send weapons to Netanyahu.

A handful of politicians on the Democratic side have stood up and tried to restrict sending weapons.

The Bernie Sanders of this world and others, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and others, have tried to do that, but they're a minority within their own party.

So there's no debate about the fact that the Democratic Party got us to where we are now.

That said, I do have friends in the Arab-American, Palestinian-American Muslim and committee in places like Michigan who said Trump will be better than Biden or we won't be worse than Biden.

And I said, You're insane.

So there's just just no.

And unfortunately, again, I don't like to be the I told you so guy, but we have Palestinians starving right now.

We have famine like conditions in Gaza that is blessed by the United States of America.

You have far right Israeli politicians bragging that we have Donald Trump's support and greenlight to do whatever we want.

You have smotrich coming out just this week saying, God willing, we will expel all these people and expand the borders of Israel.

That is all happening on Donald Trump's watch.

The massacres are happening on Donald Trump's watch.

A little girl we saw in the midst of flames with her family killed on Donald trump's watch.

Nine children of a pediatrician in Gaza massacred on Donald Trump's watch, the greatest single killing of children in one day.

A few weeks ago, 200 Palestinian children killed after the cease fire was broken by Israel on Donald Trump's watch.

So it does frustrate me that Trump gets this pass not just from liberal media, but even some on the left, even some in my Muslim community.

He is a Teflon figure.

I will I will be bewildered till I die at how Trump gets away with so much stuff.

And this is a classic example of I still meet people, including Arab-Americans and I mean people in the Middle East who say, Well, Trump is better because he's arguing with Netanyahu.

Who cares?

The thing with Trump is it's not about what he says.

It's about what he does.

Don't get distracted by the rhetoric or the impulsive nonsense.

And yes, right now it's very hard for me to say with a straight face that Donald Trump is better than Biden.

I'm not going to say who's worse.

But clearly right now, everything that is happening is horrific.

You have Cindy McCain, the widow of the most pro-Israel senator of my lifetime, John McCain, going on the Sunday show saying people are starving.

We can't get aid and only get aid and our aid trucks are attacked.

Cindy McCain is saying that right when you've lost Cindy McCain and when you lost Piers Morgan, when you've lost Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister of Israel, who is a right winger, not a tofu eating sandal wearing liberal lefty.

Ehud Olmert was born into the Likud Party.

Right.

Was a right wing prime minister, bombed Lebanon.

Right.

He comes out this week and says, and I quote, This is a war of annihilation.

Right.

That's the kind of thing that will get you expelled from Harvard if you say that now.

But the former prime minister of Israel can say it's a war of annihilation.

It's war crimes.

Why is a former prime minister of Israel who is right wing able to say this stuff?

But American politicians, whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump, are not able to say this stuff?

That is what is absolutely stunning in our discourse right now.

You feel the sense of not necessarily diplomacy, but being diplomatic has been lost when it comes to the politics in this country and things that are not even in this country, let's just say, world wide.

Do you feel like it's been lost?

I'm not sure diplomacy is the right word.

I think look, I wrote a book about winning arguments and debates.

But one thing I said was I wrote it because I feel like the public square is being degraded.

Why?

I like coming to events like this and doing public events and discussion because I value speech.

I value discussion.

I like disagreeing with people.

I don't like soggy consensus, but it has to be done in a way that is respectful, that is factual, that is in good faith.

Right?

Too many people today in public life are not operating in good faith.

They're operating for clicks, for clout, for performance, to make money.

They're grifters.

They're people.

People have said to me, oh, what would you do if you interviewed Marjorie Taylor?

GREENE And I'm like, I probably wouldn't interview her because the value of that interview would be very trivial, because she's not she's not a serious, genuine or sincere person, right?

She's a performing artist.

So I like to have substantive issues.

I do like to challenge people, whether they're people, you know, the different side of the political divide, different part of the world.

But it has to be with some substance and good faith.

And I think, look, we've lost the art of debate and discussion in good faith.

I also think, you know, you know, in a social media age and in a Trump age, people are much cruder.

Now, You know, the ad hominem, you know, there's a role for ad hominem.

I wrote about it in my book.

There's a role for ad hominem.

But now this thing where everyone just resorts to kind of incendiary language for the sake of it.

And I think Israel-Palestine is a classic example of that, where, you know, for example, on the one hand, I do think that the charge of anti-Semitism is now used by Netanyahu and his cronies to shut down criticism of Israel.

Miss Rachel being a classic example of that fact.

Gary Lineker in the UK, the famous sports broadcaster who just left the BBC.

On the other hand, there is very real antisemitism in the United States of America and other places.

And when you talk about Israel, we should talk about it in a way that doesn't play into anti-Semitic tropes.

So I do walk that line and try and make both those points at the same point and I think we've lost that.

Sometimes we get so carried away, whether on the left or the right, whether we're pro this country or that country that we lose.

I'm of Indian descent and I see that with the India-Pakistan recently flare up like that.

There are no good guys, I'm sorry to say that India-Pakistan conflict and we need to be able to talk about it in a blunt way without just being partizans and hurling insults at each other.

I'm going to ask one more question and then I promise you guys can ask your question.

So start marinating thinking about it.

Now we're going to open up to the audience.

And if you're listening in online, you can also send in a question.

I'm going to tell you that number before we forget.

3305415794.

Just in case you missed it.

3305415794.

Okay.

Now, my last question.

You have obviously you criticize Trump a lot, but you did say one like if you wrote this, you wrote a book talking about how to win an argument.

I don't I'm not arguing with you on stage.

I'm not going to do it.

But you said this.

You said the next Democrat should take a page from Trump's book.

You said that this week, I believe.

Yeah.

Talk to me about what do you think the Democrats need to do to get back?

I mean, take control of the House, take control of the Senate in following Trump, What are the attributes that he has you think they could utilize?

It's a couple of things.

One is I think it's generally I'm not accusing you of this, but generally the media as a whole were obsessed with 2026 and 2028.

Trump years are like dog years.

Good luck getting to 2026 and 23.

Every day is a year, right?

So it's very hard for me to think about next November's elections when I don't know what's going to happen next week.

What outrage scandal, controversy is coming our way.

Like the first 100 days of Trump felt like 100 years.

He went in front of Congress and said, I've done more in 100 days than most presidents do in four years.

You know what they say about stopped clock is right twice a day.

He wasn't lying.

He's true.

He did do more in 100 days than a lot of presidents do in four years.

It's just he did a lot of bad things, which he wouldn't agree with.

So, look, the elections, yes, the Democrats need to recover that their branding is in the toilet.

They're polling absurdly low levels.

It's insane how unpopular, given who they're up against.

So the Democrats need to sort their lives up for sure.

I think they know that.

But look who the candidates can be in 2028.

We have no idea.

People go up and down.

You know, Cory Booker was flavor of the month for a few weeks after he gave that long speech.

Then he voted for Jared Kushner's father to be ambassador to France, the only Democrat.

Suddenly, he's unpopular with the base.

So there's going to be a lot of, you know, hit and miss people.

You know, it's going to be it might be someone we've never heard of.

It might be like a Bill Clinton out of nowhere or even to a lesser extent, Barack Obama.

Let's see.

I suspect a lot of people will be running in 2028.

But my my advice to Democrats in terms of Trump is just stop being so cowardly.

Stop being afraid of your own shadow.

Grow a spine.

Like these are the people who poll test and focus group everything.

Do you think Donald Trump poll tests and focus group tariffs?

Do you think Donald Trump sat around the table and said, What is middle America?

Think about me wanting to invade Greenland?

Right?

That wasn't that wasn't something they focus group like I'm going to retake the Panama Canal.

How does that poll with people in, you know, Illinois like it just doesn't happen.

So as much as I loathe what he stands for and does, I do admire the fact that they are willing to set a target, set a goal and do it right.

Well, Democrats just hang around and, hey, let's have another policy paper.

Let's have another debate and discussion.

Let's have a hold a conference.

I think that's a problem.

And Democrats for years made excuses about why they couldn't get stuff done.

Why don't we have universal health care in this country?

Oh, it's too expensive.

Is it as expensive as the cost of the US economy of Trump's tariffs?

No, but he did it and he got away with it.

He's getting away with it.

So I think one lesson to learn is come back in and if you do get to come back in and if if they win, if we have free and fair elections and they come back in, then have some ambitions, get stuff done, stop running from your own shadow.

You know, And I just think the next Democratic candidate needs to do a bit more because clearly, unfortunately, works in America.

Donald Trump has made an entire career out of He just makes ridiculous promises.

He's been telling us that his health care plan is coming in two weeks time for the last eight years, right?

Eight years of in two weeks.

I'll tell you my health care plan, right?

He makes ridiculous promises.

Like on day one, I will end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.

Remember that It's been several 24 hours since then.

I just.

But he gets away with it, right?

As much as you and I can laugh.

Well, I can criticize.

So, yeah, I think the next Democratic president candidate should be like, I'm going to have a $30 minimum wage.

And they say, how you can pay for it?

Just watch me.

It's going to be amazing.

We're going to have universal health care.

How are you going to pay for it?

Oh, I'll do it in day one.

I think we need some of that.

I think you need to stop.

If it's asymmetric warfare right now, Democrats sit around going, we're going to cost and test all of our proposals.

Republicans are like, we're going to conquer Greenland.

What are you going to do about it?

Right.

I think there has to be some undoing of that asymmetry.

So more lying, now, but not lying, though, that you do want a higher minimum wage and universal health care.

So just do it To quote Nike.

Just go do it.

Mathias and everyone.

All right.

For those that are just tuning in, I'm Edina.

We've got a reporter at News Five in the moderator For today's conversation, I am joined with the Mehdi Hasan, the editor in chief and CEO of The Tale.

And we're talking about the state of politics, media and the democracy.

So much to talk about here.

We're going to take our first question.

I mentioned this number earlier, but I will say it again for our live streamers, 3305415794.

I thank you so much for being here with us today.

My parents are Nakba survivors and my mom was born and raised and I'm a refugee camp on the West Bank.

So we grew up in a very political, politically active household.

I personally believe that one of the greatest threats to American democracy is lobbying and super PACs.

What is your belief on how we get rid of the influence of the NRA and the apex of the world and the United States?

So I really appreciate how you phrase that question, because I find too often if we want to talk about lobbying in the context of the Middle East, again, the charge of anti-Semitism applied because some people do, and I don't want to deny this.

There are people in US politics who have said anti-Semitic things like Jews run America, Jews control Congress, which is an anti-Semitic trope, of course, But it's undeniable that there are lobbying groups that lobby for various countries, not just Israel, and they exist and they have a lot of money.

And the wider problem in the United States right now is financial corruption, political corruption and lobbying.

This is it's a in the Middle East.

We see it very plainly with AIPAC, But it's not just a PAC, it is the NRA.

And one thing I never understand with Democrats to go back to my level of Democrat bashing is Democrats will line up to say the NRA is evil.

We must get money out of politics.

They'll say stuff like, The gun lobby has bought the Republican Party.

They'll say this stuff.

I can find your quotes.

But if you apply them, if you ask them to apply that same logic to it, but they won't do it, in fact, they'll say, Oh, it's anti-Semitic to suggest that we're under any influence of a of a pressure group.

It's not anti-Semitic.

It's just basic politics in this country.

We know that the NRA and big Pharma and the AARP pension is very powerful lobby and all of these lobby groups exercise complete undue influence over weighty influence on Capitol Hill.

We know it's a problem, right?

No sane person who knows anything about America is or has worked on Capitol Hill would deny that.

Right?

Big money.

Every Democrat says big money is a problem in politics, but Palestine's an exception.

Don't don't judge us on the money there.

And a lot of Democrats are a PAC funded politicians.

I think that's a real problem.

So, look, I do take a much broader lens.

I do take a much broader like you, I think it's about getting money out of politics.

This isn't about Israel or AIPAC or the NRA or one group or one issue.

There is a corruption in our politics right now.

It's unique to the United States.

No other Western democracy I know of has anything akin to Citizens United, the ability to have these super PACs to have money in politics, to treat money as speech.

I hilarious.

I've never I've never lost so much when I saw judges in this country say money is speech and corporations are people.

That is a very uniquely American approach to party funding and we need to do something about it.

Now, can you do something about it?

When the Supreme Court, the United States says the Constitution protects us, probably not without a constitutional amendment, which hasn't happened for several decades, I've interviewed Senator Elizabeth Warren, who's been at the forefront of pushing reform on this issue, and she admits to at some point there's going to have to be a movement for a constitutional amendment because US politics cannot continue like this.

With this, every election raised, the money gets more and more and more like to give you one example, one where a PAC was involved.

Jamaal Bowman, Democratic member of Congress in New York, who lost his seat in a primary.

Like the money spent on that primary race, not the general election, It's a primary race in one district of one city of the United States of America.

Moment something at 25, $30 million was more money spent on that race than individual European countries spend on their elections.

That's insanity.

No American agrees.

Every Poll shows it's a bipartisan issue.

Whether you're Republican, independent, Democrat, everyone supports curbs on the corruption in politics and party funding.

And we need to do it.

We need to do it to save our democracy we also need to do it to save our foreign policy.

We're going to get through as many as these we can.

So who's next?

Yes, Maddie, you have been one of the few mainstream voices calling out us Complicity in the war of Gaza.

On Gaza.

What more can the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities do to amplify this message and push for real change in the U.S. foreign policy?

Big question.

We don't have much time.

It's a very big question.

It's a question I get asked a lot.

Look, I think our refugees need to do more of what they've already been doing, which is organizing and protesting and understanding the role of what we just talked about, money in politics and countering the pernicious influence of money in politics, countering the lobby groups and pressure campaigns.

We know there are a lot of members of Congress out there who do want to do the right thing, but they're scared, they're afraid, and they need to be emboldened.

That can only happen with support from some of the communities who care a lot about this issue.

But again, I want to I want to make it broader than just Gaza.

I think when you say what should Arab Americans be doing, my answer is what should Americans be doing?

I think it doesn't matter whether you're an Arab American or a Jewish American or a black American, whatever kind of hyphenated American you want.

I take great pride in all of us, many of us being hyphenated Americans, something great about this country.

But the reality is we need to be across every issue.

The reason why Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans powerless on an issue like Gaza or U.S. foreign policy is because they say we are powerless across the board.

It's not just Gaza.

When you try and lobby on other issues, you'll find yourselves powerless.

So in order to have power on foreign policy in Gaza, you also have to have power in a whole host of other issues.

So it can't just be that we turn up for a protest because this is the one issue I care about.

It can't just be that I want other people to join my coalition for the people of Gaza because I'm from Palestine or I'm from the Middle East.

It has to be that we show up for each other, for every issue that matters, right?

It can't just be I don't know if we only view politics through the prism of what is good for me and my community.

I'm not saying you're doing that.

I'm making a broader point.

Then we will always suffer because actually and this is the only thing that keeps me going in the Trump era, there are actually more of us than there are of them in this country.

Right at the problem is, you know, I'm from the UK, we invented the shit divide and rule, right?

There's a divide and rule philosophy from the right that the left and liberals and minority communities fall for every time.

And I think that again think big picture and then everything else falls into place.

Think beyond Gaza and then we can actually save Gaza.

We have a lot over here.

But I'm going to remind this crowd, a lot of you gave me questions to ask.

Ask your questions.

What do we have made?

My question is, we are at the abyss.

And this country politically, are we headed towards hungry?

Are Putin Russia?

And what dramatic change that can happen that will change the direction of this country.

It's a great question.

I don't think we're in Putin's Russia, but I think we're definitely heading into Orban, Hungary territory.

And those are not my words.

By the way, J.D.

Vance was asked in an interview, you know, what you're saying about universities and cracking down on universities and launching an ideological war on higher education that is very much out of Orban's Hungary.

And he responded, Yeah, it is.

Orban has done a great job.

So in that sense, this is not some accusation that we're making.

They're very proud of the fact that they love Viktor Orban.

They host them at their conferences.

Tucker Carlson goes and does shows that Trump calls him, you know, I endorse do it is a real problem in Hungary.

And in Europe is a very good example of what happens when democracy becomes illiberal.

Democracy on the road to autocracy.

It's an EU member state.

It has the trappings of a democracy.

They have elections, it's a member of the European Union.

And yet at the same time, universities have been cracked down upon.

The media has basically been neutered by Orban's allies, and Orban himself stayed in power by basically undermining the opposition through legal and not so legal methods.

And I think that has the fact that that's been a model for the American right for several years, that also the Christian nationalism and the anti-immigrant sentiment from Orban built a wall.

A lot of that has been transferred over here, and that's deeply worrying.

And I think, look, the number of people now who've been the number of books that have been written over the last ten years warning about the price of American democracy, the death of democracy, the rise of fascism.

Again, some of us were accused of being hyperbolic.

The right have invented this phrase TD's Trump derangement syndrome, apparently, if you criticize.

And yet the problem is they're doing everything they said they would like.

I didn't make Donald Trump say that I will be a dictator on day one.

He said that on his own, right.

I didn't make Donald Trump do a record number of executive orders or defy the judges.

Like I said earlier, we're already they're already in violation of multiple injunctions and court cases.

They're already going around judges.

In fact, I don't know if you saw the story.

The conference of judges in this country is now getting together.

This is insane.

I don't know how many of you know this to use the limited budget that they have for their own organization of judges to get themselves their own armed security force because.

Death threats against judges have multiplied since January.

And because they this is worse than death threats is bad enough.

You had the West part.

They getting their own security force because they don't trust the U.S.

Marshals, who technically are the people in their courtrooms who they send out to do their bidding will be there for them because the U.S.

Marshals employed by the Department of Justice and Pam Bondi, I know that ultimate loyalty to Donald Trump, that is where we are as a country right now, where judges are saying we need our own security because we're getting death threats and B, we don't trust the Department of Justice.

So, yes, we are in a kind of Hungarian place.

And to answer your question, what needs to change?

It's a good question.

I don't think one single event will do it.

I don't you know, I'm of the view that Donald Trump would have won in 21 after the pandemic.

I think he would have got reelected in 2020.

The pandemic was, you know, Taleb Naseem, Nicholas Taleb, Black Swan event.

Do we have another black swan event?

God forbid that changes people.

I don't know, to be honest.

Ever since 2016, when I got Brexit and Trump wrong, I stopped doing predictions.

We have over here.

On a more personal note, I know you became a U.S. citizen in 2020 and I really appreciate it.

We need a guy like you.

Oh, thank you.

And I just want to ask you, could you share with us for a moment your own immigrant experience?

That's a great question.

So my wife is American and she lived in the UK for several years and wasn't the biggest fan of the UK, I think it's fair to say, was very keen to move back to the US.

So when we got a chance to do it for work, we did.

I was here for several years on a work visa and then a green card, but I've always I did want to become a naturalized citizen because I do believe very much in the values that this country is supposed to be built upon.

I also believe that, you know, someone like me who is commenting a great deal on the future of this country and is bringing up children's countries should have skin in the game.

And therefore, you know, I want to take pride as a citizen.

I'm a dual citizen.

I'm a citizen of the UK and of the United States.

And I love the fact that we can be dual citizens.

I love the fact that you can be an immigrant, proud of your heritage, but also love the new country that you've moved to.

And just from a practical point of view, I given that Stephen Miller exists, I'm glad that I did take citizenship, because I'll tell you what, as I said earlier, I had no idea that green card holders, I don't think anyone in this room can actually honestly say that last year they would have predicted that green card holders would have been caught up in the first 100 days.

You know, the whole idea of being a permanent resident was supposed to mean something on a to citizenship.

The fact that you've got Mahmoud Khalil still behind bars, unable to attend the birth of his child, committed no crime whatsoever, zero crimes.

Even the administration does not claim he committed a crime.

That is a scandal.

And I think we need to think about a lot of our fellow residents of the United States who are not citizens, but also do have skin in the game, also are committed to this country, but are suffering hugely, living in fear.

I have people who are on green cards I know who will not fly out of the US right now because they're just worried about coming back into the country.

So my immigrant experiences has been both good in the sense that I'm proud to become a citizen but bad, and that my first few years as a citizen has been fighting to try and say what this country is supposed to stand for.

I want to give you an easy question.

What's your favorite food as an immigrant?

A quarter pounder with cheese?

Well, not the answer I expected.

We have next.

Hello, my name is Amir, so I wanted to say thank you on behalf of journalism students right now in this polarizing world, to see your voice represented really gives us hope, because obviously we are misrepresented right now in trying to be silence in the industry of journalism.

So I'm learning to navigate that industry where my voice is just silence.

And I learned that this year.

What advice do you have for someone like me to develop a journalistic voice that not only stands for truth and integrity, but also gets heard and taken seriously?

Wow.

Big questions today.

Thank you for your question.

Thank you for your kind words about me.

I should say, not just me.

Give it up for Nadine, who's a proud Palestinian-American from Louisiana.

Anna now covering politics in your great city.

And we were talking backstage in the green room, like when I entered the media, there were not very people who loved me.

And one thing that keeps me going is it's a very changed landscape.

Now there are more and more people.

I was at MSNBC with two other Muslim co-hosts, Ali Velshi and Ayman.

Were you?

Dean There are people across networks, newspapers doing great reporting, great work.

So that for me has been very energizing to see, despite the media, for all its flaws, has become more diverse.

Now, whether we see a rollback of that in the coming years, let's see.

But that has actually inspired me to meet the number of young Muslim Americans, Arab Americans, black Americans entering the media, trying to Latino-Americans who have been completely underrepresented despite being the fastest growing group.

So the diversifying of the media is important.

As you say, it's a real challenge.

You're a journalism student right now and you're I I'm going to say this because it's not hidden.

You're wearing it.

You're you're a headscarf wearing journalism student.

So you are a muslim woman in a headscarf and Palestinian.

So so your sisters go through the list.

You're a Palestinian woman, Muslim headscarf wearer wanting to work in a media industry that ain't great for women, Palestinians, Muslims and hijabs.

Give it up for this brave young women.

Look, I'm just going to say three.

I'm going to say three quick things to you.

Now.

I want to be brutally honest with you.

It's not going be easy.

It's going to be really hard.

And this will be really hard moments for you.

And I have lived through those moments, but it can be worse for you.

I wrote a piece for The Guardian in 2010 or 11, in which I wrote about my experience as a muslim journalist and the shit I had to endure at that point.

Who knew?

15 years later that stuff was easy compared to the 15 years since.

But one thing I wrote at the time is Muslims shouldn't be expected.

We're not born with thicker skin than everyone else.

We shouldn't be expected to have thicker skins.

But ultimately that's where we are.

You will have to put up with stuff that other people don't have to put up with.

I needed to be ready for that and that's why there was a time when I used to go and tell Muslim crowds, Hey, make sure your kids are all journalists.

I don't do that anymore because it's not for everyone, right?

You need to go in with eyes wide open and sorry.

So I say to parents in the room, if you have a child who wants to be a journalist, great, encourage them.

Be open eyed about it.

Otherwise they cannot just be doctors.

I know that's what you really want.

And the second thing The second thing I would say is what I said earlier.

Read everything.

You can know the argument better than everyone else.

You will have to know your own argument better than everyone else, and the other side's better because you will be challenged more than other people.

You will be expected to defend yourself more than other people.

So make sure you are well read.

Don't kind of don't skip stuff.

Don't be lazy.

Not that I'm saying.

Oh, but that could that will be your downfall.

And number three, I would say enjoy the small victories.

Sometimes we're super negative about all the obstacles that we face, all the barriers, and they're all very depressing.

Some of the competition has been very depressing, but also the wins enjoyed the wins, the small victories.

You managed to get something on air that you didn't think anyone else got away.

You managed to get interview by Noam Chomsky story, an interview that no one else don't do can do.

You managed to kind of get your foot in the door of someone when no one's ever got their foot in the door before.

Enjoy those victories because otherwise you will be permanent disillusion.

And that's what they want, right?

That's what the racists and the bigots and the people who don't believe in a plural America, that's what they want.

They want people like you to feel like I can't achieve anything and I just need to stay in my own lane.

No, say no to that.

Be a journalist.

Don't give up.

Don't change your mind and listen to your parents.

If your parents are in the room.

I'm so sorry.

I mean, my message to brown parents is, if you have four kids, maybe only three of them need to be doctors and one can do something else.

That's a fair compromise and they can support her during the journey.

That's true.

And the siblings who are doctors can find the one who's not.

All right.

We got one more question.

This answer is going to have to be quick, so go for it.

two points.

One is establishing credibility with media.

I think that was has done a great job with that.

I think just as is also with the truth, like they're tied together, right?

So I feel like being equally skeptical.

Maybe maybe is unfair when it comes to a media outlet that's established its credibility very well.

Right.

So I'll just take my bias.

Whole stick was a tail for a while The second point is that brings me like I was about to talk about younger people like now you are CEO of well-established media outlets.

It's great to spin up a show maybe with her, I don't know.

But that's been a show for the for the youth.

Right.

To take next action is change is not going to be immediate, right?

I agree.

It will take some time.

But these are my two points.

So give you the mike back and let a minute I agree with you.

Change doesn't happen overnight at all.

We are in a long haul.

One of the reasons why I'm on the I'm on the left, the political spectrum, one of the reasons I think the left has failed is because the right have had a plan for many years as to what they want to do in power, what they want to do with the judiciary, what they want to do with taxes, what they want to do with the federal government.

And I think they're executing that plan.

And I think the left, the liberal left in particular, has been all over the place.

INCREMENTALIST So I do think we should have a plan.

And, you know, there's a reason why, you know, the Chinese government is doing so well, too.

They have like five, ten year plans.

Meanwhile, we can't build a bridge in this country without all falling apart.

So I'm all for kind of long term thinking, long term change, strategic thinking.

I do think that's difficult in the Trump era because everything changes by the week.

So it's very hard to plan.

Will we even have a free press at the end of this year in terms of credibility?

Yes.

When I set up to tell you I want it to be independent, I want to have independent journalism that doesn't answer to C-suite, to advertisers or sponsors corporate interests.

But at the same time, a lot of independent outlets make themselves fringe very quickly.

And my position is, you know, the old the old philosophical conundrum, if a tree falls in a wood and there's no one around to hear, it doesn't make a sound.

There's no point publishing great journalism if people don't hear it, it read it, act upon it.

We just commissioned a documentary that just came out, Who Killed Shrinking.

Please go watch.

It had huge impact.

We revealed who killed in a block with the American journalists.

It was picked up by the CNN and PR by the Times of Israel.

That's the kind of impact we're trying to have.

We are independent, but we're very much about making noise in the mainstream as well.

I to have some fun.

Thank you.

You know, he said so much.

That was great.

She's going to tell you us.

Thank you also to Nadine Abu Qatada for joining us at the city club.

Forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like you, you can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at City Aalborg.

Today's forum is the Sadik Forum on the Islamic World and was made possible thanks to the support of the Siddique.

For years now, the Siddiq family has assisted the City Club with connections to speakers from across the country and around the globe whose perspective centers the Muslim experience and help each of us understand the breadth of the human experience.

We'd like to thank the Siddiq family who are here with us today for their support.

Today's forum was also part of the City Club's Authors and Conversation series in partnership with Cuyahoga Arts and Culture in the Cuyahoga County Public Library.

The City Club would like to welcome guests at the tables hosted by the Arab-Americans of Cleveland.

Carol, Ohio Jane Aid Group and Space Bound Inc. Coming up next at the City Club, Friday, June six at 7:00 PM, we will be at the Mimi, Ohio Theater right here in Playhouse Square.

The right Honorable Dame Jacinda Ardern, 40th prime Minister of New Zealand, will reflect on her struggles, triumphs and experiences that shaped her leadership style in her new memoir, A Different Kind of Power.

She'll be in conversation with author and psychologist Lisa de Moore.

Tickets are available for this and other forms at City Club dot org.

That brings us to the end of today's form.

Thank you once again to Mary and the dean.

I'm Cynthia Connolly in this forum is now adjourned for information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to City Club Dawg.

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