Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed on Monday again defended Hasan Piker after publicly distancing himself from the Twitch streamer in the wake of concerns that he is antisemitic.
El Sayed campaigned with Hasan Piker multiple times before clinching his party’s nomination in the state’s Aug. 4 primary. As he took increasing flak from more centrist Democrats for his alliance with Piker ahead of the general election, el Sayed on Aug. 26 said he had “no plans” to appear with the left-wing political commentator.
This week, el Sayed appeared to shift during an appearance on The Breakfast Club, rising to Piker’s defense as controversy builds over whether the Democratic Party should align itself with the socialist. Besides el Sayed, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, along with New York House candidates Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, are among socialists who have warmed to Piker.
“They’re trying to equate him and David Duke and him and Nick Fuentes,” el Sayed said, referring to the neo-Nazi leader and right-wing political activist, respectively. “The fact that they’re working so hard to character assassinate him suggests that there is a disjunct there between what he’s actually saying and what people hear him saying who actually pay attention.”
The Senate candidate suggested concerns about Piker amounted to “cancel culture,” and emphasized that he agrees with the political commentator on several issues.
“There are a lot of things he says that I deeply agree with. People deserve healthcare. We shouldn’t be fighting dumb wars. The war in Iran is ridiculous. Donald Trump is a fascist. All true,” el Sayed said.
Piker has attracted bipartisan scrutiny for his views on Jews and Israel. He is widely condemned by Republicans, while many prominent Democrats have warned against endorsing his presence in the party. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin are among Democrats who have distanced themselves from Piker.
Their positioning comes amid concerns that Piker is an openly antisemitic figure, due to his repeated denials or downplaying of sweeping sexual violence against Jews in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, saying he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time” and calling Hamas “a thousand times better” than Israel.
Earlier this month, Piker reiterated his support for Hamas as a critical part of the Palestinian “resistance” in Gaza. During an interview on Channel 4 News UK’s TrumpWorld, Piker said he didn’t “love” the terrorist group and didn’t necessarily support it governing Gaza, arguing he is “simply looking at this in the most pragmatic and in the most realistic ways possible.”
“I think Hamas’s current position, as far as I understand it, is far more moderate than its position was at its inception,” Piker said. “They’ve recognized that it’s virtually impossible to advance this vengeance quest against Israel.”
Piker has also drawn scrutiny for saying in 2019 that the United States “deserved” the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He later walked back the statement, saying it was taken out of context.
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“Of course it was a dumb statement, and of course I think Hasan himself would say that was a dumb statement,” el Sayed said of that statement earlier this month. “But you know, to sit here and play gotcha politics with a dumb thing somebody said out of context that they disavowed themselves — to say, ‘Oh well, what does that mean about what you think?’”
“I want to be held accountable for what I say and what I do, rather than this idea that we’re so stuck in cancel culture that all of us agreed was a bad idea back in 2020, but we seem to want to bring back,” he added.