'Patriot Act' Producer Describes The 'Mental Anguish' of Her Final Months on the Show

In wake of the Hasan Minhaj-hosted political talk show Patriot Act ending, one of the show's former producers discussed the "mental anguish" she alleges she endured in her last months working on the show.

On Thursday night, Nur Ibrahim, who worked as a news producer on the show between 2018 and 2019, tweeted a short thread addressing the requests for her to speak about her experience on the show, after it was cancelled by Netflix.

Ibrahim said that she waited to speak about the experience, because thinking about it makes her "sink back into days of depression." She said that while working on the show she was "humiliated and gaslit, targeted and ignored." She said that she thought that tweeting about the experience would be counterproductive. "Tweeting this will probably not help me or anyone who has suffered," she wrote. She also said that other women had already spoken out about their experiences on the show.

Still, despite her issues with the show, she said that she was proud of the work she did on Patriot Act and was thankful for the opportunities. She did question whether "it was worth the mental anguish I went through over my last few months there."

She ended the thread by showing appreciation for the show, but also called it out for not always practicing what it preached. "I wish we still had Patriot Act. I also wish they truly practiced the progressive ethos they cultivated on screen. Then they would really deserve all your love," she said.

On Tuesday, Minhaj tweeted that the show had reached its end, thanking Netflix and viewers for the experience working on the show. He also shouted out the writers, producers, researchers, and animators that worked on the show.

Since the show's cancellation, Ibrahim has praised some of her former co-workers, retweeting many of them. She also encouraged people to hire associate producer Amy Zhang, calling her "truly brilliant and committed to her work." She gave a similar endorsement to writer Wil Kauffman, calling him "the funniest."

Shortly after the show's cancellation, Ibrahim tweeted thoughts similar to her thread from Thursday night, albeit more vague. "Made some of my closest friends on Patriot Act w/ Hasan Minhaj and got to work with a talented and committed team of producers and coworkers," she wrote. "The show deserved better and the people who worked for it certainly deserved more."

A press contact for Netflix did not respond to Newsweek's emailed request for comment in time for publication. Newsweek reached out to Ibrahim via social media for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.