A former MSNBC journalist who once got a guest banned from CNN for a tasteless joke about violence at his expense would like you to know that he thinks tasteless jokes about violence at the president’s expense are perfectly fine, even when the president just faced his third serious assassination attempt in less than two years.
If you remember Mehdi Hasan at all, it’s either for a low-rated MSNBC show that got canceled in 2023 or him getting conservative pundit Ryan James Girdusky canceled in 2024 for a joke on a CNN panel in which he said he hoped Hasan’s “beeper doesn’t go off” — a reference to Israel’s successful operation targeting Hezbollah leadership using explosive beepers.
I think we can all agree that joking about someone’s death on air is pretty tasteless. And Hasan certainly made sure Girdusky was drummed from polite media society and never letting anyone forget what a horrible outrage had been perpetrated upon him.
“I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”
A year ago today, a racist tried to make a ‘joke’ about me being killed by Israel. It was the 1st time I’ve ever walked off of live TV. That night CNN said they’d ban the racist from their air. But in the year since, I myself haven’t been… https://t.co/ncyXXbgtgC
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 28, 2025
This is Hasan complaining about it a year after it happened and still trembling in outrage on the other side of the screen. Nobody’s seriously trying to target Hasan, mind you, unless you’re talking about professionally. The man has bounced around gigs because of his lack of audience and is currently fronting his own independent outlet, Zeteo News, which about all of six people have heard of.
But no, you shouldn’t make a joke on TV about killing someone, even if nobody is going to kill them.
In other news, Hasan is also worked up about the fact that Melania and Donald Trump can’t take a joke from Jimmy Kimmel about killing Donald Trump — when people really do keep on trying to kill Donald Trump.
For those of you who missed it, here’s the “joke” from Kimmel, delivered two days before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, about “expectant widow” Melania Trump:
In his fake White House correspondents speech @JimmyKimmelLive actually joked about Trump’s assassination — just before a real assassin showed up at the real dinner.
Hey @DisneyABCTV when the hell are you finally going to pull this vile person from the airwaves? pic.twitter.com/PG3iptGnZX
— Marc Thiessen 🇺🇸❤️🇺🇦🇹🇼🇮🇱 (@marcthiessen) April 26, 2026
“Our first lady Melania is here … so beautiful, Mrs. Trump. You have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said during a monologue that imagined him delivering a speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Hee-larious! That wasn’t funny after the first two legitimate attempts on Trump’s life, and it wasn’t funny after this:
WATCH: President Trump evacuated from the WH Correspondents’ Dinner following loud noises, security concerns: pic.twitter.com/kJUJZ83N9U
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) April 26, 2026
President Trump just posted video of Secret Service shooting at attempted assassin from the White House Correspondents’ dinner, allegedly Cole Allen, and photos of him. https://t.co/HKykZwT3Fe pic.twitter.com/UvJBIs3gsg
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) April 26, 2026
The White House similarly did not think this was very funny.
“Wow, Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible Television Ratings, made a statement on his Show that is really shocking. He showed a fake video of the First Lady, Melania, and our son, Barron, like they were actually sitting in his studio, listening to him speak, which they weren’t, and never would be,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post published on Monday. “A day later a lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House Correspondents Dinner, loaded up with a shotgun, handgun, and many knives. He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason.
“I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel’s despicable call to violence, and normally would not be responsive to anything that he said but, this is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” the president added.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 27, 2026
The first lady, meanwhile, issued a rare statement calling Kimmel a “coward” who “hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.”
“Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community?” she asked.
Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.
People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to…
— First Lady Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) April 27, 2026
Again, it’s worth noting Kimmel is the same man who spread inflammatory lies about the alleged killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk just months ago and not only escaped with his job intact but a phalanx of defenders asking why conservatives just can’t take jokes about them being killed.
That phalanx includes Hasan, who — while brooding on a dumb “beeper” joke a year after it happened — doesn’t see why the White House thinks all these assassination jokes are inappropriate when lunatics keep trying to assassinate the president.
“They literally don’t understand comedy or free speech. We are governed by snowflake morons,” he wrote in response to Trump’s Truth Social post.
They literally don’t understand comedy or free speech.
We are governed by snowflake morons. https://t.co/nGBnES8HA2
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) April 27, 2026
In another post, he mocked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s slamming of Kimmel.
“Who in their right mind would be saying a wife would be ‘glowing’ over the murder of her beloved husband,” Leavitt said during a press briefing on Monday.
“It’s called a f***ing joke,” Mehdi wrote (without using asterisks). “Remember when Elon Musk claimed comedy was legal again???”
More than a few people noted the cognitive dissonance here. Here’s Siraj Hashmi, formerly of the Washington Examiner:
It’s like he never got the opportunity to be a theater kid pic.twitter.com/iJ6bOfMhkN
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) April 28, 2026
Hashmi, you may have guessed by the name, is not what they used to call “Mayflower Material.” To use a bit of leftist terminology, his “positionality” is roughly in line with Mr. Hasan’s, aside from the fact that he’s a conservative.
And he also seems to understand that a microagression by Ryan James Girdusky is quite a bit different from what one might term a macroaggression in Kimmel’s case — which, you know, joking about an-oft targeted president being targeted by an assassin counts as, in pretty much everyone’s book.
Guess which one a former MSNBC apparatchik thought was truly offensive, however? Quelle surprise. Yet again, we have solid proof that if it weren’t for double standards, they’d have no standards at all.
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