Mehdi hasan celebrating the release of win every argument the art of debating persuading and public speaking when every shows how anyone can communicate with rise above the for tat on social media and triumph in a successful and productive debate in the real world. Whether you are making a at work or debating current political issues with a friend mehdi hasan will teach you how to sharpen your speaking skills and make winning case mehdi hasan an Award Winning britishamerican journalist. He will write and he is the host the mehdi hasan show on msnbc, nbcs streaming channel peacock. Hasan is a former columnist, podcaster at the intercept, a former presenter on aljazeera english and his op eds have also appeared in the york times and the washington post. Hasan will be in conversation this evening with jen psaki, who has been called one of the best press secretary. Im going to restart because this deserves tone. One. One of the best press secretaries. A fitting accol accolade . Yes. A fitting accolade. Given that her tenure as the White Press Secretary covered. One of the most complex periods in modern president ial history. Psaki has a show launching on msnbc in weeks inside with jen psaki at 12 p. M. On sundays show. So please welcome me and joining to politics and prose this evening. Mehdi hasan jen psaki. You, what a great. Is this working okay. What a great here. This is amazing. Well first, i want to start by just giving you a little heads up that when we get to the q a portion, then you will all have the opportunity to debate many should you choose. So people here who know him know theres some safe topics where hell be on the other side hes a cheese lover. You hate cheese. Get on up there. Or if are somebody who thinks covid restrictions should have been thrown a year ago, hes also happy debate you. So just heads up for that. I will note that while youre thinking about this, i have a blurb on the back where i refer many as one of the toughest interviews i did in the white house. So just prepare yourself. Make some notes, and youll have your time. So i want to start because everybody in here may own the book or maybe their potential book buyers and book buyers for their friends. Why do you need to know to win a debate . What is goal . Its a great question and thank you, everyone, for coming out. I realized how popular you were, jen, till i saw this crowd as i picked the right to have conversation with special thanks to everyone standing up. I came to politics at last year for my friend rabia book launch and i had to stand up whole time. And i was and i was really annoyed. So thank you all for coming and standing up we appreciate you. Look, i say in the introduction to the book, people translate. Oh, i like to argue. I did i did it on a colleague. Lawrence odonnell interviewed me on monday and i said, i dont like arguing. And a lot of people say we dont. We try and avoid them. And i quote, dismissing out i quote Dale Carnegie in the book saying avoid arguments that you avoid rattles. I think most people actually enjoy arguments. They enjoy winning them. The problem is they dont always win them. And if you lose argument, obviously youre not going to enjoy doing it. So im of the school of thought that believes Everyone Wants to win an argument. Everyone at some point in their life, needs to or has to win an argument and then everyone can be taught to win an argument and thats why i set out to write the book, because i believe strongly that people say, oh, you know what you do or what i do, were born that way. Its a natural no, dont buy that at all. I think what we do can be taught can be learned. Ive learned over the years, people have been talk about stuff for thousands of years going back to aristotle and i just want it to come. I wanted to combine what was already out there with my own experiences and say to people, dont be afraid of this stuff. Anyone can do this. And thats why i wrote. I love that you said that. And you i have talked about this that sometimes people think to you, just like we all came out swinging, right . Then we just swing people. And there is a huge of preparation that goes into it. Its almost the most important part. You talk a lot about this in your so to have a show launching in two weeks. Just again tell us a little bit about your preparation for winning an argument or an interview, which sometimes is an argument on your show. So the book is divided into three sections. The first section is all about the fundamentals. Its all the stuff im talking about, the stuff you need to know about how to make emotional appeals, what you need to do with facts, what i call your receipts, which you know all about and you need to do in terms of listening, because listening is important. Also ad hominem arguments which i mount a controversial defense for a little more for people whove read the what is an ad hominem ad hominem arguments the person not the argument when youre the High School Debate and my daughters High School Debate, you are taught play the bull, not the man. And thats great in theory, great on college. In real life, we all know have to play the man and the bull, right . That is just and i make the point because one of the main ways you win an argument is by asserting your credibility and diminishing your opponents. Aristotle called the ethos one of the three pillars of an argument. And therefore, when people say, well, you should just leave the person alone, just address the argument, thats nonsense. And i give examples in the book. If somebody has a history of lying, you should point that out. Dont trust that person. Thats an ad hominem argument. If somebody is paid by the fossil fuel industry to deny Climate Change, you should point out that theres a conflict of interest and. So on. So in the first out of the book, i point out all these kind of fundamentals in the middle third, i have fun. Its the a section some trips dont get to the middle. The beginning is good. Two tricks techniques, things to you out of a hole, things to kind of corner or knock off your adversary off balance. And then the third section is what i call what some people might call wb. Its kind of worthy but dull. Its practice, preparation, how to build confidence with all that stuff. Oh, sounds like homework. Theres actually a chapter on homework, but its probably the most important part of the book because i couldnt do what i do and you wouldnt be able to do what you do unless you put in those hours and that effort because. As i say, this is not natural stuff. This is stuff that requires preparation delivery. And i tell the story of many people in the book who we consider today to be great orators who didnt start out that way, whether it was winston churchill, whether it was i talk about demosthenes. Those of you who studied the age compared to most of these, was the greatest orator of greece is considered by some to be the father of rhetoric. The most of these could not give a speech in his twenties. He embarrassed in public in court he had a stutter and a stammer. He was short of breath. He built himself an underground batman style cave which he retreated into he even shaved off half his head so he would be too embarrassed to come of the cave. So he forced himself to stay down there, standing in front of a mirror, running back and forth with pebbles his mouth, to get past the stammer until he thought he was good enough to go out and take people on again. And today hes considered one of the Great Fathers of rhetoric. So i say if he can do it, if churchill could do it, if mlk do this, churchill, where did churchill practice . Churchill. Theres a story about his valet. Norman, who used to hear churchill murmur in the bathroom, in the tub and. He would run and say, sir, what can i get you . And he would say, norman, im not talking to you. Im addressing the house of commons. Churchill would practice his speeches. The topic is churchill. I tell the story in the book when he was a younger mp, tried to give a speech, the commons lost his place, went red faced. Im sure many of us have been there just, couldnt remember what was the next thing they wanted to say. And he got if you watch the house of commons is not like the house of representatives is much more furious Prime Minister is quite spicier little spicier belligerent and he got heckled down was so embarrassed that that would never happen to me again. So he spent the next 20, 30 years becoming the guy we now remember fight on the beaches, stand up to the nazis that, didnt come naturally to him. So give us a little sense of each stage. So you have a big interview coming up this sunday. Maybe you do. I dont know what it is. You can tell us all here. What are you doing to prepare for that starting so the one thing i do when i have an interview and i and i encourage this doesnt just apply interviews this applies to you have a big meeting in the boardroom tomorrow you have a big case in court if youre a lawyer have a big presentation in high school. I try and find every it sounds obvious i know it sounds like the department of bleeding obvious try to find that everything there is you could possibly find about the issue. The other person every i talk about in the book a technique called steel manning. We always talk about straw manning using the weakest possible argument against your opponent. Misrepresent to your opponents argument in a week. We dont do that. I mean you could do that during a debate to mock but when youre preparing for a debate, steel the arguments come up with the strongest possible argument on the other side that youre going to come up against. I always try and pride myself in knowing the other sides argument better than they do. If you can know the other persons arguing better than they do, then theyve got nowhere else to go and theres no surprises. You dont want to be surprised. In a live event on live tv in the middle of a boardroom presentation. So people again take this stuff for granted but it requires a lot of time. I talk about in the about role playing when i was at Al Jazeera English when we spent a long time on tv, longer than we have in cable news as, youll discover in a couple of weeks we would actually sit in roll play. So we had the we had former Israeli Foreign minister on the show, danny. I had a producer basically become danny ayalon for a week and she would come into meetings, she would be danny ayalon and i would treat her as danny ayalon. And she would basically her job was to go through all of his previous and know what his answers, all to various questions. It was almost like a shot. If says this, ill say this. If he says this, ill go there so that youll complete the whole thing is mapped out before people look at me, just winging it. How did he pull that . I wish i could take credit, so i just pulled it out. My memory. So its all planned out like calling her danny. Even after the show is over, i got so into it, but, you know, roped playing, brainstorming, steel, mining. I talk about all these techniques to get ready for that big event, do the homework, put in the time because it really annoys me as someone who does this for a living. The people go out there and think, well, you know, if im going to operate on a patient or if im going to do some of these tax plans, im an accountant, im going to do all the work. Im going to go to the poshest universities. Im going to get the best degrees, public speaking. Oh, i can just do that in half an hour. No put the same amount. And if its just as hard, if not harder, so youve done all the prep work, which is the whole point. Get to the interview. Whats like in the moment when you know, prepared for this moment and the person says something and youre like, i have the receipt in my back pocket and im so excited about this moment or describe it for me, but i but i love the way you describing it. You dont that moment because im pretty sure i saw you do that in the White House Briefing room with the foxes do see a few times they got the great the great napo baby of the White House Press corps. I saw psaki bums, but i enjoyed doing that many many bombs online. So i do enjoy doing them. I do. I talk about it in the book. Not going to pretend this book ill be theres no false modesty in this book. Sorry to say to you if you get about it, but i make it very clear that theres hundred books in the store. Im sure that will teach you how to negotiate and give a speech and, you know, do a presentation. Im not doing that. Im teaching how to win and im very ruthless about that. And im very open about and i say in the book, i get a lot of yeah, there is a high is a little adrenaline when interviewing john bolton and john bolton says. And i say to john bolton because i did the homework, went back and found his older speeches, i find him giving a speech to the mujahideen in iraq, the mek, which is a kind of nuts iranian cult opposition group, which people think is good because its against the iranian government. So we should support that group, that nuts. And hes gone and given speeches for money paid. So i asked no one ever asked him about this. So i said, okay, lets ask you about this. So i ask him and john, were having the interview and i say about the mek ukraine to be iranian, is it because they pay you ten gram to speech or whatever it is . How dare you suggest that i do that . No one buys john bolton, but they did pay you for your speeches when they were at prescribe terrorist organization. He says no, no. Hillary clinton, who im sure you love, she listed them. Yeah, but you gave a speech to them before they were delisted in paris in 2000, whatever it was. I have the date i have the u2. I went and watched it. We transcribed it john bolton. John bolton. Were on remote. John boltons like its broken up. No john bolton does the you said this interview would be 15 minutes and youre 15 minutes are up, sir. And im like, actually, ive got a clock in front of me. Were not at that time and that is a great moment to know that john bolton, who john bolton is, you know, is nobodys fool. What do you do about john . What smart guy hes been debating since the Yale Political Union is actually very good at interviews. Interviews dont get better. Thats a great moment to go. Okay. I have the receipt. He thinks hes out of here, but hes not out here. So those are great moments when you talk about in the book, you know, you know, gotcha questions. As a former president , im sure youve accused others of using gotcha. Sure. Its classic move from politicians. Oh, thats a gotcha question. Nothing wrong with a gotcha question. Thats good im trying to get you im holding it to account right now. My goal, i love the way people run away. Yeah, im trying to get you. I make no apologies for that. Right. Holding someone to account, catching them out. Fine. If youre inconsistent, youre dishonest. Im going to call you out. General flynn, before he went kind of full q and on ask and had the shortest national scrutinized career in American History. He came on my show. He was still a trump proxy at that time in the 2016 race and we had discovered that during the Obama Administration when you in the end. So in the end of the obama he was the head of the dia defense of perhaps Barack Obamas worst many decisions but he made Michael Flynn head of the Defense Intelligence agency. Flynn went from congress and we found a quote from a transcript where he talked about how Irans Nuclear program wasnt threat or some such formulation. So i decided to read those words out to my talk about it in the book, a way to kind of disarm your opponent is presenting them with their own words without telling them their their what people think. Thats below belt. Why is it below the belt . Its your work. Its not my job to remember that. Theyre your words. Its your job. So we read out the quote. Said what . He spent the whole shows in iran iran. With iran, we must be, you know, hawkish because i said, do you agree with people who say that Irans Nuclear program is not . No, i dont agree with that. I dont agree with at all. Those are your words that that was a moment some people they go cheer at Football Games thats me thats my mom. Yes yes thats my mother. I see the receipts and i have a chapter on. Theres Chapter Three of the book is all about the receipt. So always sure you have your receipts. Dont get into any argument discussion where you are not armed with risk and sometimes physical receipts. The whole freeze receipts. Whitney houstons line about receipts comes from actually wanting to see physical. Sometimes its great to have a document done that again in the briefing room. Youve pulled out. Ive got it here. I had in my pocket. I just accidentally just there you are so of the things you talk about in the book which really stuck with me is just this how where do you balance between fact books and charts and heart and emotion . I mean, in democrats bless all of them. And the umbrella, love a good chart and love. I mean, i dont know if you all remember the bending the cost curve stage of the Affordable Care act. That was the argument i was in the white house at the time i still dont know what that. Did you did you stay awake during the meeting. I barely but you know, there is a balance, right . Because you want to be fact based and have the receipts. But you also want to be flexible and agile. So whats that balance or how you how do you how would you define that . So the is you need facts. Im not kellyanne conway. Im not here to tell you that were going to post that alternative. Well, in fact in fact, one of the reasons i wrote the book is because we might come to is like there are so many people gaslighting us these days and bsing us and have ruined the art of the debate just by of beating the out of us with nonsense that you cant even have a good faith argument anymore. But in terms of the people who do to have a good faith disagreement, i say, look, facts are important. You need to have a solid, substantive backing to what youre saying, but that is not whats going to win. You dont know is ever convinced with a chart or and democrats bless them. The labor party in the uk where im from, its the same thing, very technocratic approach. If i can do one more pew poll data point, i will convince this voter if i can do it, if like think tank, if up your poll if i had just one more fact one more statistic you know hillary bless her heart in 2016. You know, up against donald trump. Donald trump understands you thin