Stevens says ‘it certainly makes sense’ for El-Sayed to end affiliation with Piker
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by Ryan Mancini - 08/16/26 2:12 PM ET
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Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) on Sunday said “it certainly makes sense” for her former Michigan Senate race opponent, Abdul El-Sayed (D), to end his affiliation with popular left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker.
Fox News’s “The Sunday Briefing” co-host Jacqui Heinrich asked Stevens if she would call on El-Sayed, a progressive, to moderate his views on issues.
“Well look, you know, it certainly makes sense to get rid of this Hasan Piker affiliation,” Stevens replied. “I’m calling for that. I’ve continued to call on that.”
Stevens recalled one of her constituents who supported El-Sayed telling her, “Hey, let’s get rid of this Hasan Piker. You know, he’s a popular YouTuber and streamer.”
“You know, everyone gets when you got a lot of followers, that, you know, it’s a way to elevate your platform, but now let’s focus on Michigan,” Stevens continued.
Heinrich added, “So … you’re calling on Abdul, I’ll say, to stop campaigning with Hasan Piker. Noted.”
El-Sayed narrowly defeated Stevens in the Senate primary election earlier this month, delivering another blow to a Democratic establishment facing a potential group of progressive and democratic socialist candidates being ushered into Congress if they win their respective races in November.
El-Sayed will face off against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) in November.
Conservatives and some Democratic lawmakers have criticized the association between left-wing candidates and Piker, a democratic socialist and political commentator. He is also the nephew of Cenk Uygur, the co-creator of the progressive online news and commentary platform “The Young Turks.”
Piker has faced pushback for his criticism of the Israeli government’s war in Gaza and its treatment of Palestinians, as well as his criticism of the U.S. He recently reflected on comments he made on a 2019 Twitch stream where he said that “America deserved 9/11,” when he was explaining blowback toward the U.S. in response to its military campaigns worldwide but specifically in the Middle East leading up to the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks.
At the time, he said the U.S. “totally brought it on ourselves” but walked back the remarks two days later in an interview on “The Young Turks.”
“I said it in 2019, and you know if you listen to the full conversation, you very quickly understand what I’m talking about,” Piker told Mehdi Hasan during an interview on Zeteo’s “We’re Not Kidding” podcast late last month.
“I should have phrased things better,” he later added. “I apologize for those who I have offended, but most importantly, apologize for giving an opportunity to the right to just, like, use this against me.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6032080-stevens-calls-el-sayed-end-piker-tie/