The rise of Hasan Piker as an influential left-wing commentator has created a political headache for Democrats as the party debates whether to associate with someone who once said that “America deserved 9/11.”
Piker, who gained notoriety as a Twitch streamer and today has a large following online, has become a surrogate for Democrats, particularly progressive candidates, in the midterm elections and has hosted lawmakers such as Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on his stream.
The embrace of Piker suggests some within the party see value in his following and hope to gain additional exposure with would-be voters. Yet the perceived friendliness is also drawing warnings from some elected officials and candidates that he falls outside of mainstream discourse and should be ignored.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), whose centrist streak has frustrated the left wing of his party, labeled Piker a “raging antisemite” for his criticism of U.S. support for Israel and controversial comments, including his commentary after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. At the time, Piker called the invasion a “direct consequence” of Israeli and U.S. actions and stated that Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women “doesn’t change the dynamic for me.”
“It is crazy. You have many of my party, they are proud to do events with like that Hasan Piker,” Fetterman said in a recent appearance on Fox News. “Democrats have to decide, whose side are you in? Are you proud to stand with that kind of an individual or stand with Israel?”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a possible 2028 candidate for president, has also distanced himself from Piker and said he would not appear on his popular Twitch stream that’s amassed millions of followers. At the same time, Booker has argued that it’s not helpful for Democrats to have a political debate that focuses on a single figure.
“I had no idea who this person was until a few days ago,” Booker told the podcast Pod Save America.
But Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), an influential progressive on Capitol Hill who has livestreamed with Piker, described him as a worthy interviewer. Boycotting someone such as Piker could “cost us future elections,” Khanna warned, basically making the argument that Democrats should challenge his views rather than avoid them if they find his commentary controversial.
“Should we just have purity tests of canceling folks?” Khanna, also thought to be mulling a presidential run, said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “The lesson of the last election is we’ve got to be out there. We’ve got to engage. It’s a complex, messy, multiracial democracy. I will defend my views, but the people who are saying, ‘Don’t engage,’ will cost us future elections.”
Piker has denied that his remarks, denounced as antisemitic, were meant to be offensive. He also called his comment about 9/11 “inappropriate” and said that he was not “precise” enough in critiquing U.S. foreign policy.
“I’m a megaphone, right?” Piker recently told Politico. “There are a lot of Barbs and Deborahs out there in Minneapolis, for example, that have never encountered me, and yet they share that frustration with the failures of establishment liberalism all the same.”
Piker is roiling more than the field of possible 2028 Democrats. He’s also become a flashpoint in one of the most consequential Senate races, in Michigan, as progressive candidate Abdul el Sayed plans to rally with Piker on Tuesday. The move has drawn bipartisan condemnation from his election opponents.
In battleground Maine, Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who is facing accusations of antisemitism himself, pulled out of a recent event with Piker. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a former presidential candidate who backs Platner, still appeared with the controversial streamer.
Piker has interviewed other high-profile progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The leaders of left-leaning think tank Third Way wrote last month that “Democrats are too cozy” with Piker and that no one is “more influential and extreme” for having, among other things, called ultra-Orthodox Jews “inbred” and said Hamas is “a thousand times better” than the Israeli government.
KHANNA’S COMPARISON OF HASAN PIKER AND JOE ROGAN IS ‘PATHETIC’: JOE CONCHA
Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who now chairs Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, called Piker “repugnant” and “wrong for the Democratic Party.” But he added, “Every person runs their own race.”
“I think that he is antisemitic. I think that he is an extremist,” Reinish told the Washington Examiner. “I think that no Democrat, in their pursuit of trying to replicate how Trump put his coalition together — his winning coalition — should fumble and stumble and try to grab on to the latest thing en vogue, or the latest thing that’s getting a lot of clicks.”
