Democrats urged to ‘disavow’ Hasan Piker
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed faces scrutiny over his campaign’s ties to far-left streamer Hasan Piker. Piker’s highly controversial remarks about U.S. Jews prompt prominent Democrats to warn colleagues to distance themselves. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer joins ‘America Reports’ to analyze the fallout and the growing antisemitism concerns on the far-left.
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Democratic Sens. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., condemned livestreamer Hasan Piker after he said that Jewish Americans will face inevitable consequences for supporting Israel.
Last week, Piker told his viewers, “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”
Slotkin, who is widely believed to be a potential contender for the 2028 presidential election, shared what she called a “response to Hasan Piker’s recent comments on Jews in America being targeted because of their views on Israel.”
“This shouldn’t be hard: no community should face the threat [of] violence for their political views. Period,” Slotkin shared in a statement posted to social media. “That goes if you’re pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, pro-choice, pro-life or any other cause you care about. And blaming the victims of violence for bringing it on themselves only further endangers people.”
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Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., called out Hasan Piker in a social media post over his comments about Jewish Americans and Israel. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon)
She suggested that this is part of a much larger phenomenon of the normalization of political violence.
“In a time where political violence and anti-semitism has been spiking — and where just 6 months ago Michigan had a nearly deadly event of anti-semitic mass violence at Temple Israel — no one should causally be suggesting that anyone, Jews or otherwise, are to blame for being targeted,” Slotkin concluded.
Rosen offered a similar statement, blasting Piker’s remarks as “a new low.”
“Hasan Piker has been trafficking in antisemitic tropes for a while but even this is a new low,” she posted to X. “Blaming Jewish Americans for the violence and hate they’re facing is not just wrong, it provides an excuse to those perpetuating these anti-Jewish hate crimes. Let me be absolutely clear: crimes against Jews for being Jews is antisemitism plain and simple. There’s no excuse for it.”
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Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, has previously argued that he does not need to answer for everything Piker has said, but notably distanced himself from this latest controversy. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
Many prominent politicians across the aisle, including fellow Democrats, have spoken out directly against Piker, arguing that he appears to be victim-blaming the Jewish community for attacks they endure.
While Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has previously shrugged off Piker’s controversial remarks, he appeared to distance himself from the left-wing streamer after the latest controversy.
Piker has a long history of controversial comments, ranging from saying “America deserved 9/11” to praising a Zohran Mamdani administration official’s desire to “’impoverish the White middle-class.’”
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Sen. Jacky Rosen speaks on June 16, 2023, at the East Vegas Library in Las Vegas. (Madeline Carter/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Hasan Piker and did not immediately receive a response.