Hasan Piker, a 35-year-old American streamer who broadcasts on Twitch to millions of followers, is one of the rising voices in Democratic politics. He describes himself as a Marxist, has said America "deserved 9/11," called for Zionists to be treated like neo-Nazis and declared that he would choose Hamas over Israel "every single time."
In recent months, he has moved from the screen to the campaign trail, becoming a prominent figure in Abdul El-Sayed's campaign. El-Sayed won Michigan's Democratic US Senate primary last week and could become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.
Piker was born in New Jersey to a Turkish family and grew up in Ankara and Istanbul. He began his career at The Young Turks, the progressive-left online news network co-founded by his uncle, Cenk Uygur. In March 2018, he began streaming on Twitch while continuing to work for the network, before leaving in January 2020 to focus on independent streaming. He now has about 3.1 million followers on Twitch and nearly 2 million on YouTube.
He streams for eight hours a day, seven days a week, mixing news commentary, video games, profanity and conversations with viewers. The result is a kind of current-affairs show for a generation that does not watch television, particularly young men, a demographic Democrats have struggled to reach.
Despite his Marxist politics, the business he runs is thoroughly capitalist. According to Rolling Stone, nearly 50,000 subscribers pay $6 a month for his channel. After Twitch takes its 30% cut, that translates into more than $2 million in annual revenue.
'We brought this on ourselves'
Piker does not particularly mind being called a communist. "I wouldn't say I'm a communist, but when people call me that I don't really care, because I think it's kind of cool," he said on a podcast, explaining that communism is the "end goal" of socialism.
In July, a video resurfaced from his November 2025 trip to China in which he described Mao Zedong as "one of the great leaders of this world." That same month, he appeared onstage at the College Democrats of America's national convention wearing what was widely described as a Mao-style jacket.
Last week, after El-Sayed's victory, Piker called on the Democratic Party to embrace "Marxist-Leninist" discipline and punish those who fail to adhere to the party line.
The remark most closely associated with Piker came in August 2019, during a livestream in which he watched Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw being interviewed by Joe Rogan. Piker mocked Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost his right eye to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, and referred to the fighter who wounded him as a "brave soldier."
"America deserved 9/11, dude," Piker said during the same broadcast. "Fuck it, I'm saying it. We totally brought it upon ourselves." Only after two days of criticism did he walk the comment back in an interview with his uncle, Cenk Uygur, calling the remark "inappropriate" and describing it as a failed attempt at satire.
Blatant anti-Israel rhetoric
When it comes to Israel, however, Piker has not backed down. In January, he wrote on X that "Hamas is a thousand times better than a fascist settler-colonial apartheid state." When confronted with the statement in April on Pod Save America, one of the most influential podcasts in Democratic politics, he refused to soften it. "I stand by that," he said.
Piker explained that he was a "lesser-evil voter" and therefore "would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time." He described Hamas as being "entirely comprised" of "orphan children that have had their parents killed by an apartheid state," and compared the organization to the African National Congress' armed wing during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
Hamas is not the only terrorist organization Piker has defended. He has said he has "no issue" with Hezbollah because of its fight against Israel, and has declared Hezbollah's flag his favorite. He has described the Iranian-backed Houthis' attacks in the Red Sea as "resistance" that was "not only moral but just." His remarks about Hezbollah have also been documented in interviews examining accusations of antisemitism against him.
He has called Zionism a "mental illness." Writing about former hostage Edan Alexander, an American Israeli soldier who was abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, Piker said: "Shame on anyone who said that this American guy who volunteered for the Nazi army is any kind of hero."
Piker has also cast doubt on evidence of sexual violence during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, claiming that Israel had "contaminated the evidence pool" and saying the issue "doesn't change the dynamic." He has previously referred to Israelis and Orthodox Jews as "psychopaths" and "inbred." He later expressed regret for using the latter term, but has rejected accusations that he is antisemitic, insisting that he is anti-Zionist.
Piker's statements have proved controversial enough for Britain to bar him from entering the country. He had planned a trip that included an appearance at the Oxford Union, but 48 hours before his flight discovered that his authorization to enter Britain had been canceled. He read the notice aloud during a livestream watched by some 30,000 viewers: "Your presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good."
The British Home Office barred both Piker and Uygur from entering for planned public appearances. British authorities did not publicly attribute the decision solely to criticism of Israel, although Piker himself said that was the reason.
Several Jewish organizations had campaigned against his visit in the preceding weeks and accused him of supporting terrorism. Piker blamed them for the decision. "If you criticize Israel, your travel will be restricted," he said. "This is fascism in its purest form."
Despite that record, the past year has marked Piker's arrival on the Democratic political center stage. He has interviewed Sen. Bernie Sanders, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, as well as California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer.
He was also an early supporter of Zohran Mamdani, who is known for his anti-Israel positions, and attended Mamdani's victory celebration on the night he was elected mayor of New York City in November 2025.
In April, Piker joined El-Sayed for a series of campaign rallies at Michigan universities. More recently, he said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, had also agreed to appear on his show.
Ezra Klein, an influential voice on the American left, New York Times opinion columnist and host of a popular podcast, published an April column defending Piker under the headline "Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy."
Klein, who grew up in a Jewish household and has written extensively about divisions within the American Jewish community over Israel, wrote that although he had "deep disagreements" with Piker, Piker was not a "Jew hater" but an anti-Zionist.
The debate over Piker has now become part of a larger battle over the Democratic Party's identity. Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, one of the figures most closely associated with the party establishment, has said: "I'm not going to be in the same party as Hasan Piker. If he becomes a force in the Democratic Party, I'm out of here."
Sanders responded that if Carville was unwilling to belong to the same party as Piker and El-Sayed, "he can start his own party." Sanders has argued that figures such as Piker should remain within the Democrats' broad political tent, even while calling Piker's 9/11 remark "dumb."
And so, a man who said America brought the Sept. 11 attacks upon itself and that Hamas was preferable to Israel, has become more than a commentator for the progressive left. He is emerging as one of its new gatekeepers, gaining influence, helping candidates capture Democratic strongholds and looking toward November's midterm elections as an opportunity to expand his influence in Washington.
