BROADCAST BIAS: Networks cover for radical Hasan Piker despite ties to Senate nominee
The primary win by Abdul el-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race demonstrated that Democrats and their broadcast media allies can’t really identify a radical left-wing fringe anywhere. They ought to easily find the fringe with radical Twitch streamer and podcaster Hasan Piker, who el-Sayed campaigned with and refuses to condemn.
Now that el-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers in the general election, the networks are going to defend the Democrat against charges that he campaigned with Piker, who has proclaimed that America deserved 9/11 and that Chinese mass-murdering communist dictator Mao Zedong was "one of the great leaders of this world." A few weeks ago, Piker appeared as a speaker at a College Democrat meeting dressed in a Mao-style suit. But don’t call him a communist!
In a rare bit of straight reporting on el-Sayed, "NBC Nightly News" included this from reporter Shaquille Brewster on Wednesday, Aug. 5: "He’s also been criticized for campaigning with controversial left-wing podcaster Hasan Piker, who said America deserved the 9/11 terror attacks. El-Sayed said he disagrees, but would not disavow Piker’s views."
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Most reporting on el-Sayed was nebulous. The next morning, NBC’s Garrett Haake said Republicans are "painting him as an extremist," with a Trump quote: "The Communists want to take their ruinous and deadly ideology of misery and squalor to every state in America, but we’re not going to let them." This kind of vague quotation suggests Trump is making this "communist stuff" up.
ABC reporter Rachel Scott summarized: "The president trying to focus on el-Sayed, branding him as a communist. El-Sayed saying he’s ready for the attacks." El-Sayed gained this soundbite: "They’re going to point at me and go point at other names, like, well, he’s different. That’s the best you got?"
The PBS News website included an Associated Press dispatch that was no more specific about Piker than saying he was "a progressive and controversial influencer online."
On NPR, former Obama strategist David Axelrod advised: "What you don't want is for Mike Rogers, who has pledged his fidelity to Trump, to be able to create a distraction by using the DSA and Hasan Piker and some of the more radical elements of your coalition to change the subject." Just as you shouldn’t talk about Obama’s relationship with terrorist Bill Ayers or radical Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who said ... America deserved 9/11.
MS NOW’s Vaughn Hillyard pretended this focus on socialists and communists was totally false, fretting about how el-Sayed could counter "this sort of disinformation and this onslaught of money and type of messaging that he is bound to face." In another segment, Hillyard asked "do Democrats need to forcefully push back against this latest red scare in order to win this race?"
Red scare? Just like the last century, the left can pretend communists are non-existent while their existence is obvious.
In a softball interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, she at least included a soundbite of Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman saying he cannot unite with Piker: "I can't come together with someone if you are willing to embrace people that love Hamas or that thinks America deserved 9/11." She tossed to el-Sayed: "What's your response to Senator Fetterman?" And asked if he had any plans to renounce Piker, el-Sayed bizarrely replied: "I'm less focused on folks who are campaigning with me, more focused on the folks I'm campaigning to."
Fetterman also highlighted Piker’s hatred for Israel, such as Piker saying he "would vote for Hamas over Israel" every single time. The elitist media never find extremism in supporting Hamas terrorists.
While the networks have ignored Piker, he’s been repeatedly celebrated by The New York Times. Last year, a Times article hailed Piker and his muscle-bound physique under the headline, "A Progressive Mind in a Body Made for the ‘Manosphere.'" This year, Times columnist Ezra Klein penned an article titled "Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy" — which the Times then changed to "This Is Why There’s No Liberal Joe Rogan."
In April, Piker appeared on the paper’s "Opinions" podcast under the provocative title, "The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I? Why Petty Theft Might Be the New Political Protest." Piker brought out one of his communist heroes to justify shooting a healthcare CEO: Friedrich Engels wrote about the concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson, as the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder."
Piker has a thing for violence. He was suspended from Twitch in 2025 for advocating a Republican senator’s murder. Don’t count on the broadcast networks to ask el-Sayed if he disavows that comment.
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The networks find things much less murderous still controversial with Republicans. In 2012, the networks all launched "news" when Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock stated in a debate that "life is that gift from God and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something God intended to happen." Reporters hounded not just Mourdock (who lost that election), but they tried to attach these comments to all Republicans, especially presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
In most midterm election cycles, the broadcast networks stick to general commentary about the state of the parties and avoid specific races. The exception is when they find a Republican saying something embarrassing and "extremist." But they won’t do the same for Democrats.