The Hasan Piker Memo Has Gone Out: The Roster of Democrats Disavowing the Streamer Grows

Brad SlagerSep 1st, 2026, 1:23 pm
 

It is only Tuesday, and it’s already been a tough week for the dynamic duo of Abdul El-Sayed and Hasan Piker. Not only is there a digital beef with Vice President JD Vance, and CBS News dredging up past problematic 9/11 posts, the Michigan candidate continues to struggle with his association to the firebrand Piker. Now a growing list of others play along like he is manufactured ally.

As Piker has refused to tone down his explosive rhetoric even a little, El-Sayed is aware he is actually dragging an anchor with his buddy. And so, despite months of allyship and Piker appearing prominently and repeatedly with El-Sayed, suddenly he became merely “a Twitch streamer from California.”

El-Sayed ran into this problem with his attempt to de-pledge his allegiance to Piker again this weekend in a media scrum. He was asked repeatedly about Piker and his stances, and El-Sayed, once again, tried diminishing his connection to “a social media person.”

This stringing up of CAUTION tape around Hasan is spreading. We saw on Face The Nation this Sunday when John James had hostess Margaret Brennan off balance when he brought up the El-Sayed-Piker connection. Margaret attempted to shield him from blame by not naming El-Sayed in this introduction of the topic (“Did you just accuse Senate candidates of something to do with terrorism? I’m not clear what you just said?”)

As James continued and clarified, she then tried to massage the messaging and loosen the connective tissue between the men.

Okay. I think you’re talking about a supporter of a Senate candidate, that Senate candidate has started to distance himself from and that influencer, Hasan Piker has disavowed those past comments he made. But let’s put that aside, ’cause I don’t want to get into that.

Also struggling to disavow in the press was Michigan figure Debbie Dingell, who was appearing on MS NOW. In the above video, when Hasan Piker was brought up she attempted to act dismayed at him being mentioned, and tried to suggest the man was crashing the party in Michigan as an uninvited guest. A laughable attempt at minimizing the threat.

We have seen Piker on stage with El-Sayed, and the two have been bro-ing it out for months. Piker himself attests, in a recent interview with Dave Weigel, that he was asked to come campaign with El-Sayed and how many times El-Sayed has been on his show. The “Senate candidate” himself touted how he brought in Piker for his campaign efforts.

As for Dingell, well – her posturing as if she were unfamiliar with the man is, we can say, a lame effort. She has recently been commenting about Piker’s hale physique, which followed a prior comment about how people find him to be a hottie.

But the Democrats have also become the voices today pretending that Piker is just some nebulous creature wandering outside the campsite. Bernie Sanders has now resorted to the tired “He – is – a – Podcast-uh!” excuse.

In speaking with Will Steakin on the Politico podcast, they both work to trivialize Piker with the Republicans-pounce routine. The attempt is to say he is a creation of GOP oppo-operatives.

Steakin sets the table for Bernie by suggesting the Republicans have set Piker up as a boogeyman, as if he were nothing more than a creation by the rival party. Sanders strains mightily to diminish him as nothing more than this guy who just talks on the computer. That would be, the same Sanders who sat with Piker and was gushing when told how he campaigned for Bernie.

And who is that seated beside Bernie while gabbing with Hasan? Perhaps there is no better example of this recalibration of Piker’s importance than seeing none other than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joining in. Behold as she arrives with the distaff version of distancing from the man.

So by now it is clear there is a script handed out. The man who has been foisted on the public and embraced by the party needs to be disavowed. For the Democrats, Hasan Piker has become the problematic relative sleeping on the couch, eating all the food, and lowering the property value.

The comedy is that Piker is not some interloper elbowing his way into Michigan politics. The Democrats brought him in and embraced him as a political gambit. He delivered multiplpe opportunities at the ballot box: He represented the burgeoning Democratic Socialists faction in the party, and he drew younger voters.

Add to that how Piker had been positioned as the Democratic Party answer to Joe Rogan, a potentially powerful media voice. Look at the cavalcade of candidates who have appeared with him, from Sanders to AOC. And he appeared beside El-Sayed often enough to suspect they were filming a sequel to Step Brothers.

But today the party players want to pretend he is nothing more than a stray voice in the digital wilderness. Oh, that guy we touted for a year and trotted out for the cameras? Why would you associate HIM with anyone in the Democratic Party?!

So now it is the desperate move to blame Republicans for daring to say that Democrats own the man they initially promoted. Hasan Piker was held up as their beacon, and now that candidates are striking the reef, there is a desperate need to pretend they never heard of the guy.

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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