{"id":21045,"date":"2026-04-08T00:17:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T00:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/michigan-senate-candidate-el-sayed-declines-to-disavow-hasan-pikers-past-comments\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T00:17:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T00:17:35","slug":"michigan-senate-candidate-el-sayed-declines-to-disavow-hasan-pikers-past-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/michigan-senate-candidate-el-sayed-declines-to-disavow-hasan-pikers-past-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan Senate candidate El-Sayed declines to disavow Hasan Piker\u2019s past comments"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

East Lansing, Michigan \u2014 Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed declined during a campaign stop Tuesday to denounce Hasan Piker\u2019s past comments and defended the popular far-left streamer\u2019s place in the Democratic Party amid attacks from the center-left.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Blue Light News while standing next to Piker, El-Sayed said he believes it\u2019s \u201ccritical\u201d that Democrats embrace Piker, who has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans over his comments about Israel and U.S. foreign policy \u2014 including from El-Sayed\u2019s two most formidable opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens<\/a> (D-Mich.) and Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Piker said on his livestream that \u201cAmerica deserved 9\/11,\u201d though he later apologized for the<\/a> remark. In the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Piker strongly condemned the Israeli response in Gaza and has disparaged the government in terms some Jews and supporters of Israel have labeled antisemitic.<\/p>\n

Asked if he would disavow any of Piker\u2019s views, El-Sayed said attempts to pin Piker\u2019s past comments to him amounted to a \u201cgotcha game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not here to disavow people\u2019s views,\u201d El-Sayed said. \u201cThis whole gotcha game, platform policing, cancel culture \u2014 I thought we were over it.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed\u2019s comments quickly drew attention from Republicans, who circulated video of his remark<\/a> online while noting Piker\u2019s divisive past.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed defended the decision to appear with Piker on the campaign trail, where the two spoke to a room of about 400 people at Michigan State University, and said hesitancy to engage with left-wing surrogates like him is \u201cexactly why Democrats too often fail to get our message out to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Sayed and Piker also campaigned at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Piker downplayed attacks from other Democrats<\/a>, including the center-left think tank Third Way and some potential 2028 presidential candidates, suggesting they were delivering \u201ctalking points that someone else has given them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a heinous smear at the end of the day, and it’s one that many of these groups actually apply, because they can’t have a conversation about Israel’s influence over American foreign policy on moral terms,\u201d Piker said. \u201cSo instead of attacking the message, they attack the messenger.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

East Lansing, Michigan \u2014 Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed declined during a campaign stop Tuesday to denounce Hasan Piker\u2019s past comments and defended the popular far-left streamer\u2019s place in the Democratic Party amid attacks from the center-left. In an interview with Blue Light News while standing next to Piker, El-Sayed said he believes it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}