Hasan Piker, the leftist streamer who once said that America “deserved 9/11” and has sympathized with Hezbollah and Hamas, was defended on the pages of The New York Times on Sunday after he campaigned with a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan.
In a 2,000-word article that was originally titled “Hasan Piker is not the Enemy,” New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein acknowledged some of Piker’s controversial comments, including his support for designated terrorist groups, but argued that “to focus only on those comments is to miss much else that Piker has said and believes.” Klein also suggested that Democrats would be unwise to brush Piker off and refuse to appear on his show because of his large social media following and his appeal among the younger and more radical segments of the Left.
The streamer has also gained national attention for expressing support for radical Islamic terrorists while calling Republicans “the biggest terrorists” in the world.
“I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time,” Piker said during a recent appearance on the popular leftist podcast “Pod Save America.” At another point of the podcast, Piker said, “The biggest terrorists, the biggest domestic terrorist in this country, the biggest terrorist internationally is the Republican Party.”
According to Klein, statements like these shouldn’t scare Democrats away from Piker. The New York Times columnist also argued that just because Piker has voiced support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah doesn’t mean he’s a “Jew hater.”
“I have deep disagreements with Piker, but he isn’t a ‘Jew hater.’ He’s an anti-Zionist. And here, I think, the real stakes of this fight come into view,” Klein wrote before going into a long defense of Piker’s anti-Israel views.
“Israel, as it is behaving today, and as it is constructing itself for tomorrow, is incompatible with any normal understanding of liberal values,” Klein continued.
The New York Times columnist did not say if Piker’s cheering for designated terror groups is in line with liberal values. Instead, Klein touted Piker’s support for Jewish Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA).
On Monday, the Times changed the headline on Klein’s opinion article from “Hasan Piker is not the Enemy” to “This is Why There’s No Liberal Joe Rogan.”
Much of Klein’s defense of Piker focuses on how the Democratic Party pushed cancel culture to its own detriment. Klein points out that most Democrats either condemned or ignored podcaster Joe Rogan in the lead-up to and during the 2024 presidential election cycle, paving the way for Republicans to capitalize on Rogan’s massive audience with very little counter-messaging.
“In avoiding those spaces, Democrats avoided contact with the kinds of voters they otherwise claimed to represent,” Klein wrote. “This is the mistake Democrats often make when they talk about what they did wrong in 2024. They realize, now, that they should try to talk to the people who listen to these shows; they are less likely to realize that they should listen to the people who talk on these shows.”
Klein then argued that Piker represents another opportunity for Democrats to reach voters, and he questioned the reasoning of Democrats, such as Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, who have declined invitations to appear on Piker’s show.
“When you’re dealing with podcasters or streamers who talk, unstructured and unrehearsed, for hours each week, if not every day, there’s going to be so much said that it’s almost inevitable that a dossier of dumb statements can be compiled,” Klein wrote. “To write those people out of acceptable political discourse is to back yourself into a shrinking, sanitized corner of the public sphere.”
Democrats who are approaching Piker correctly in Klein’s view are Sen. Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who have all either appeared on Piker’s show or collaborated with Piker in some form. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has also said he is open to appearing on Piker’s show.
Most recently, Piker campaigned with U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan as El-Sayed hopes to win a competitive Democratic primary.
“There’s a battle brewing,” Piker said at a campaign event with El-Sayed. “A battle brewing not only against the corrupt fascist forces of the Republican Party, but also against do-nothing Democrats.”
