Far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker clashed with two MS NOW hosts on Wednesday on multiple issues, including his political influence and his anti-Israel stance, as Symone Sanders Townsend told the streamer point-blank she would be telling candidates she worked for to absolutely “disavow” him.
“I used to work campaigns, Hasan, and I have to tell you, if I was a strategist or a consultant or the political director on one of these campaigns, I would absolutely be telling my people to disavow you,” Sanders Townsend told Piker in an interview on her “Clock It” podcast, which she co-hosts with Eugene Daniels. “I really would, because we wanna win! We wanna win, and so, like, if you’re not gonna help people win, distance.”
Piker acknowledged the disagreement between them as Townsend continued, “I’ve elected people, though. You’ve never elected anybody.”
Piker also maintained his view that Israel is worse than Hamas, though he acknowledged it was a provocative statement. “I do believe that,” he said.
“Is Hamas a religious fundamentalist operation that have engaged in violent actions? Of course they have, absolutely,” Piker continued. “But that violence is directly born out of, and even that repression is directly born out of, the conditions brought about by the occupation that’s been going on for 80 plus years.”
Daniels pressed the Twitch streamer on whether he understood that it sounded like he was endorsing violence by making that argument.
“Do you understand that that’s how people hear it? And is that what you are endorsing?” Daniels asked.
“So this, again, goes back to the same — this goes back to the same dynamic, right?” Piker said. “Structural violence and state violence is oftentimes made to be invisible. So when Israel as a state is operating its normal state functions, and sometimes it can come across as excessive, right? It’s not seen as violent.”
“It’s no different than when people protest against police violence and police brutality. The brutality of the police is systemic violence, and therefore it’s normalized,” he added.
“It’s made to be invisible,” Piker continued. “Whereas when people protest against the police, that is all of a sudden chaotic, that’s all of a sudden violent. It’s never violent when the police actually release tear gas on protesters. It’s violence if the protesters use leaf blowers to blow that tear gas.”
Sanders Townsend jumped in to reject the comparison to protesting the police.
“I’m gonna let Eugene move on, but I just want to note, it sounds like the example that you just gave that the people who are protesting the police are Hamas. And I just would reject that as somebody who has protested the police before, but we can move on,” Sanders Townsend said.
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“Symone Sanders Townsend is putting her finger on a real tension for Democrats heading into the midterms,” David Scharf, chair of Morrison Cohen’s Government Strategies & Controversies practice, told Fox News Digital. “Hasan Piker gives candidates access to a large, young audience that traditional political media often doesn’t reach. But he also gives Republicans a ready-made way to force those candidates to answer for statements they didn’t make.”
“Every candidate on the record defending him, appearing with him, or refusing to distance themselves from him helps turn him into a campaign issue,” he added.
“In safe blue districts, that may not matter,” Scharf said. “In a race as close as Michigan’s Senate contest, it can. That’s why Sanders Townsend, who has actually run campaigns, is looking at this very differently than Piker is. He’s building an audience. She’s counting votes.”
Piker insisted during a Friday livestream it was his “God-given” and “constitutionally protected right” to proclaim hatred for America.
During one of his lengthy shows, Piker responded to an attack ad against Democratic Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed based on his connection to Piker and his past controversial statements claiming to “hate” America.
“Bro, I hate this country, dude. I hate America,” Piker said in clips featured on the ad. “Oh God, I f—ing hate America so much.”
Piker argued after showing the clip that it was “clear” that he was angry at “what America as the American government is doing to Americans and to everyone else” but nevertheless defended his right to say he hates the country.
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“Of course, I’m a godd— American. It is my godd— God-given and constitutionally protected right to say I hate America if America is actually f—ing over Americans,” he said. “You can clip chimp it all day. It doesn’t change that. It doesn’t change that mentality.”
“To present this as like, ‘Oh, these guys are real America haters,’ as some liberals have been doing on the timeline, as virtually the entirety of the Republican Party is doing, is so f—ing stupid,” Piker added.
