‘So No Answer?’ CNN Anchor Grills Progressive Candidate Over Hasan Piker Embrace

CNN anchor Audie Cornish asked progressive Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed this week about the criticism he’s received for being linked to controversial streamer Hasan Piker.

Cornish began the discussion on Tuesday by noting, “Mallory McMorrow was on our show last week, as I mentioned. She was criticizing your decision to embrace the support of streamer Hassan Piker to represent your campaign. And what she said was very specific — she goes, ‘Look, I have a problem with him embracing this person in the wake of an attack on a synagogue.’ This is when a truck was driven into the synagogue. I want to play for you what she says after that.”

Cornish then played a clip of McMorrow, who is competing against El-Sayed in Michigan’s Democratic primary and is in a solid third place in the polls:

It could have been the largest mass killing of kids in this country’s history. And to bring somebody in to represent your campaign, in my mind, is a very different decision than going on somebody’s stream and talking to their audience.

“I condemned the Temple Israel attack immediately. Any act of antisemitism is wrong and has no place in our politics, no place in our society,” El-Sayed said in response, adding:

But I think what people find frustrating about that perspective is that when you talk about the mass killing of children, we saw that done by our tax dollars in a genocide in Gaza. And it took, I don’t know, two years to talk about that. I think we have to take seriously the idea that the money that we spent to kill other people’s kids there was money that we did not spend to take care of the kids that I took care of in Wayne County, in Detroit.

Cornish followed up, “So no answer about this embrace of him. Do you think people are making too much or too little of this?”

El-Sayed hit back, “Look, it’s a pretty crazy thing. Hassan Piker was invited to stream from the DNC in 2024. We had a whole debate about whether or not the vice president should have gone on Rogan. The idea that we’re going to tie people together and say, “Well, guilt by association” — that’s just not in keeping with the way most of us think about the world. I’m sitting on a panel with a very diverse group of people. Did I vet all of you before I came and sat here, because one of you might have said something I disagree with? I just think it’s a ridiculous way to think about politics. A ridiculous way to think about politics.”

Cornish replied, “You’re running for office, which is why you’re in the hot seat. — Well, I’m happy to be in the hot seat, but let me just speak to that. — This is why you’re being vetted. I want to raise something. You used the word “genocide.” This is the kind of thing that people point to over and over again as a problem for a party that is trying to zip up its big tent. The Detroit Free Press editorial board just endorsed Mallory McMorrow and said that you are running a divisive campaign, casting your opponents as morally compromised.”

El-Sayed added, “I think if you’ve taken money from the people who caused the problems in your life, and then come and tell people, ‘Hey, we’re going to solve your problems,’ that’s just inconsistent with being serious about solving problems. Now, if that’s divisive, I think we need to have hard conversations in our party. I think we need to be talking about who’s actually there to solve problems for you.”

Piker has long been a lightning rod of criticism for his angry condemnation of the United States, saying that the country deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks and more recently saying he has no U.S. patriotism while embracing Communist China.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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