Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/1/26: Hasan Piker Interviewed On Dem Attacks, Abdul, Media & MORE!

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Krystal and Saagar are joined by Hasan Piker to discuss Dem attacks, media, Abdul, Ossoff and more!   Hasan Piker: https://www.youtube.com/@HasanAbi   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com    Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you,

please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Joining us now is a man who has been frequently discussed but rarely interviewed for some reason, Hassan and Piker. Welcome. Great to see you, Hassan. It's good to see you, man. Hi. Thank you for having me.

Yeah. This is, I'm blacklisted from all of these mainstream outlets, so it's always great to be able to communicate my ideas and not have my first interaction be a negatively framed clip or just outright lies, you know? Well, you don't know what I'm going to start with, so don't judge the seconds. Okay, all right. Turn the heat on it. No, I wanted to just start with, like, what does it feel like to have been made the main character of this election?

And why do you think that Republicans and establishment Democrats have decided to make you the official boogeyman of the midterm cycle? I think we're living in stupid world. I think we have an illiteracy crisis crisis. in America. We have a crisis in critical thinking. The Republicans have completely run out of all other options, really. I mean, what could they run on? Could they run on the economy? Could they run on how Donald Trump has ended all wars? They can't run on any of those things. So they have no good record to run on. And they've decided, egged on by, I believe,

initially third way and other neoliberal neoliberal in the consultant class. the Beltway. They decided, you know, we're going to attack the DSA and we're going to attack Hassan. And it's going to be the clip show with the hopes that this will at least divide the Democratic Party's base enough so that they have more competitive chances in the midterms when it's a plus seven national Democrat favored environment. Yeah, it is interesting. You know, having met you, I'm always fascinated by people who are like, you. He's a radical main character, and I was like, that was really the opposite of my experience whenever we met. And we did that event a few months after the Charlie Kirk assassination.

But I do, it's a bigger picture. And I really want you to kind of think about this. When Trump has dinner with Nick Fuentes, it's a big story. I'm not comparing the two, but I'm saying he took somebody, he had dinner with him. He was asked about his views, a lot of other Republicans were asked about their views, their most controversial statements. When Tony Hinchcliff does a Puerto Rico joke at the closing. Trump rally. It's a national story about Puerto Rico. Trump has to answer for what Tony Hinchcliff himself had said when Tucker Carlson campaigns with Trump on the campaign trail,

Trump is then asked about things that Tucker Carlson may or may not have said. Abdul, by his own admission, invited you to campaign with him. I believe you can correct the record, if that's true. You do seem very annoyed. People keep being asked to, you know, go after or to renounce things and all that you have said. But it's kind of fair. No, if you're going to insert yourself as a canvasser and as a campaign surrogate, when I think you yourself would have thought if Trump is going to campaign with these people, well, then it is fair to ask whether they agree or disagree with all the things that these people have said. I'm curious for what you think about that.

So I don't disagree with you at all. I think it's perfectly valid. The issue here, however, is that it doesn't actually work, right? And there is, I think, look, we're all in the media. I think we can all agree. There has never been a media feeding frenzy to this magnitude ever before. I like the Tony Hinchcliff thing was 48 hours max, right? Maybe a week. This has been going on since April. And, and it is only escalated. So I think there's something more nefarious at play besides a firebrand that is under attack. I think there's different,

there are different motivating forces. Here, obviously, the most obvious one is, you know, I am a prominent critic of Israel, very frustrating for a lot of people who recognize that Israel has fallen out of favor and they want to engage in a disciplining operation to make sure that candidates shy away from even communicating their thoughts on Israel. I am being made an example of, right. The other reason for how long this has gone on, right, not the fact that people are asking about these questions, but more so for the continuation of this manufactured outrage cycle that seemingly is not going away. And by Republicans own admissions, this is their midterm strategy. There was an Axios report that came out, I believe, a couple of weeks ago where they openly said,

we don't really have anything else. We're just going to blast clips on the timeline. Hassan Piker, James Tala Rico is woke and gay. Abdul al-Said is an Islamist jihadist. And DSA wants to, you know, imprison every police officer in the country. Like, so that's, that's kind of what they're going with. And the reason why they're going with that is because they just don't have any other options, right?

So I see their motivation. I understand their motivation. What's frustrating to me is why mainstream outlets, that are otherwise liberal are going along with this beyond the point where it would make sense. Like in what way? Like what do you mean by that? I mean, this is approximately gone on. This is approximately gone on for more than, I would say, like 17 school shooting media cycles. I think the intensity and the frequency of it all, every candidate being asked to condemn me, not just being asked about my comments,

but specifically to condemn me and disavow me. Candidates that I've never actually encountered, being suspected of engaging in dangerous anti-American activities by the likes of Gail King when she interviewed Angie Nixon right after she won her primary in this spectacular upset victory. Her first question was not even a question, it was an accusation. You campaigned with Asan Piker. How do you feel about that?

I mean, is that even appropriate? And she was like, I have not. We had not campaigned together, right? But CBS News already had pictures of me ready to go where they put photos of me up next to Angie Nixon's face. And then Gail Nixon was, Gail King, sorry, was shocked. And she followed up with, well, would you even campaign with him? Would you disavow him ahead of time? Like, that's a little crazy, right? So I don't think I'm alone and feeling like that's a little crazy because I'm seeing Alice, in very unlikely places like boomers that have no idea who I am who are encountering my commentary for the first time ever. And I, I just read the Michelle Goldberg, New York Times op-ed piece that came out last night. And the comments are very mixed. Like you would not expect New York

Times readers and New York Times commenters on the op-ed segment to be like, why are we talking about this guy? This guy's fine. He's just activating young people to go out and vote. And you're all freaking out. And my question always is this. It's not about Nick Fuentes. I don't think that's an apt comparison, but it's more so about Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk was a party apparatchik. He worked within the confines of the Republican Party. And Charlie Kirk had a lot of very viral and very controversial points of view that he expressed with regular frequency. I don't think anyone ever made a big fuss about Charlie Kirk basically being inside of the White House on a weekly basis, right? The analog here is not Nick Fuentes. The analog, the closer analog would

be something along the lines of Charlie Kirk. And yet, obviously, because of my position being on the left, because of my advocacy for insurgent candidacies, because of the grassroots movement that we're building on our side, I think a lot of people in power are frustrated. And that's the reason why this is continued. One last follow up on this point. Because, look, it's a fair comparison. Charlie Kirk was certainly in the White House. He's an instrumental part of the campaign. You're saying, kind of looking at the media asymmetry, I would say it would be entirely fair to look at the things that Charlie had said and then to ask Republicans about it. And so for yourself, I guess, you know, what I'm looking at is, you know, you kind of have a

duality area. Like it's an awshucks. I'm just a streamer. But you did go out in canvas and campaign for Francesca Hong. You did go out in campaign for Abdul El-Sayed. You have turned, you know, your community into one which is explicitly political. You are wearing a DSA hat right now. I don't think it's even deniable that you are a leader in a large, you know, in a growing faction within the Democratic Party. So, you know, how are you, you know, squaring this genuine leadership role, which I don't even think you're going to deny here, with then the political focus that attenuates that, because, yes, Charlie, not may, well, I would say he actually did get quite a bit of media criticism, maybe not necessarily to the liking that you want.

Laura Loomers, CNN just did a segment yesterday about Trump and Laura Loomers' own connections. In fact, it was about you, and it was using that juxtaposition and about power. So if you are going to be the political leader, which it seems you want to be, and to use your audience to be, then doesn't this simply come with the territory

of having to then answer and the campaigns themselves for the many of the things that you have said on your platform? No, it does. I totally understand that. My criticism is twofold. One, we're never discussing the actual ideas that I'm pushing for. We're just, we're discussing the most negatively framed clips,

oftentimes out of context, oftentimes entirely antagonistic to my worldview, right? Like, because the last media frenzy came, the last media phrase that came about because I said something that virtually every single person from Dana Bash to Hannah Aaron has said, right, as Reclan has said, the idea that Israel is making Jews in America less safe. And the connective tissue there, of course, is the false conflation between Zionism and Judaism.

I obviously oppose this. I'm an anti-Zionist. And that turned into a defamatory media cycle where virtually every single major politician in my party, in the Democratic Party, came out with condemnations. Sometimes those condemnations were ironically enough saying exactly the same thing I was saying. The idea that, you know, a Jew should be held responsible for the crimes of Israel is ridiculous, as dangerous, as violent. I was like, yeah, that's what I'm, that's what I was saying. You're yelling at me over, you know, something that we agree on seemingly. And my frustration is I'm a media figure.

I'm a media platform. I'm almost a one person media platform. I'm endlessly accessible. And yet, real discourse is not taking place. Real discourse is not taking place and I feel like it's unproductive and I feel like we are doing a disservice to the masses. And at a time when the fourth of the state is more important than ever before, when fascism is growing in this country, when there is an unbelievable, unprecedented level of corruption, incompetence, the highest office. I feel like there is a real crisis of credibility in mainstream news and this is part of the reason why people actually have found themselves seeking out independent outlets. Now, this is, of course, beneficial for people like yourselves, people like myself as well.

We're in the independent side, and we've actually grown quite a bit. And we've been able to develop quite a bit of credibility with the masses due to our coverage, due to our refusal to abide by certain corporate media, certain corporate media conversations that are not necessarily as impactful or as interesting to the masses at all, our coverage on issues such as Israel, I think is also another major reason. No question. They're dropping the ball. And I don't want them to drop the ball.

A lot of people think I'm a hater of mainstream media. I'm on the independent media side. No, I rely on it heavily. I rely on good reporting and good journalism heavily. I have great friends that work as investigative reporters in a lot of these outlets. I lean into their work all the time. I would not be able to do what I'm doing effectively if it wasn't for good journalism. And I'm terrified of the prospect of mainstream outlets completely dropping that,

that important role that they play in defending democracy at a time when democracy is in crisis. Yeah. So that's my frustration overall. We're not having a real conversation about the issues. We're simply having a drama cycle. It's drama cycle after drama cycle. And it's unbelievably unproductive. And it's poisonous for discourse overall.

I wanted to talk to you more about the Democratic side of this because there have been all kinds of Democrats, John Osaf being one of the recent disappointing ones to come out. And yes, I condemn Hassan Piker an effort to have a congressional resolution officially condemning you all of these sorts of things. And there's been a question over whether establishment Democrats would rather see Abdul al-Syad obviously linked with you lose and whether they would prefer that outcome than having someone who was so closely affiliated with the left. be victorious in a swing state. Bernie was asked about this yesterday. Let me go ahead and play his reaction and then get you to react to that on the other side. But from what you've seen over the past few days,

do these Democrats want to see El-Sayed lose? Do you think there's Democrats that want to see that happen? Well, you know, it's a funny thing. The answer is there are some who may. I think most do not. Most understand is, we may not like El-Sayyed. we may not like Angie Nixon, but you know what, if we win Michigan and if by some miracle,

we win Florida, you know what, we're going to control the U.S. Senate. And we would like very much to control the U.S. Senate. So in terms of like the DSA candidates heading to Congress potentially next year, like what would your advice be to them? My advice would be is to ignore dumb remarks like Mr. Moswitz. And I hope. hope that he does understand that his views, and I don't want to speak beyond what I know here, but I assume he is very pro-Israeli government is my impression, that that is a tiny minority of where the Democrats are. I love that he doesn't know too much about Jared Moskowitz.

I'd like to live in that world, actually. But your thoughts on this question of how many establishment Democrats would actually prefer to see Abdul lose, even if it means that Republicans keep control of the Senate? I think there is a decent number. Many of them have revealed their actual position. They go on Fox News all the time, right? Whether they be consultants or even sitting elected representatives like Josh Gottheimer and numerous others. It's very clear to me that they would rather throw the Abdul al-Said race.

Jonathan Chait recently came out and openly admitted this as well off of something that David Sarota was saying in political or David Sarota admitted like if Democrats had an opportunity to throw the Michigan Senate race, but then win the majority elsewhere, they would take it 100% of the time. And Jonathan Shate said yes, absolutely. Why wouldn't we do that? And that blows my mind. So what? 52 Democrats is somehow worse than 51 Democrats, especially at a time when you have someone like John Federman that is an ultimate spoiler. I mean, it's it's ridiculous to openly admit. that. And I think it's, it's, it's obvious to me that these guys are unbelievably out of touch, right? They're out of touch and at a step with the needs of the masses. They do not talk to regular

folk. They have no understanding of, of how regular Americans see Israel at this point. They're in a beltway bubble. And they cannot contend with the reality out there. And that's part of the reason why they're flailing and and burning the remainder of their credibility at a time when it's really important for mainstream media to maintain some level of credibility so they can disseminate information when you know obviously Twitter is is not exactly the best town hall for for disseminating real and truthful and accurate reporting. I mean it's it's ridiculous. There's there's insane amounts of right wing commentary, right wing sentiment, neo-Nazi sentiment, flying on that platform, we should stop using Twitter as a news desk editor.

I say this is a power user. I'm still, you know, constantly tweeting myself. I just tweeted right before we got on. But I don't think that we should be using as a news desk editor. And I don't think that mainstream outlets should be using Fox News as a news desk editor. I think that's poisonous to discourse overall. See, I think you're focusing heavily on mainstream and you're totally agree. However, I don't think it's fair to say it's entirely because of mainstream news coverage that John Ossoff, you know, made the comments that he made. Ossoff, I believe by your own admission is a very talented politician. I know you've praised it before on your platform.

He came out from a calculated political perspective with a prepared statement to the Atlanta Journal Constitution because he thought it would be beneficial to disaval you. You also had the recent situation with Abdul El-Sayed, where El-Syad said nobody speaks for my campaign after that whole fracas with Jeremy Moss and the Jewish coalition of Democrats in the state of Michigan. That's not a mainstream problem. It's clear that they found you enough of a liability to have to moderately distance. So what and how do you square that with politicians how you already admire? I mean, it's pretty obvious what's going on there. John Assoff is, John Ossov is Jewish. And yet, time after time, and I remember, I also am a pundit myself. I'm a commentator. So I'm covering this stuff in real time without being heavily involved in it, right? And I've seen it over and over again. Anytime John Assov has been critical about sending weapons to Israel, there is a coalition of Jewish advocacy organizations in Atlanta and Georgia broadly that are masquerading as Jewish advocacy organizations. but are simply Israel advocacy organizations that will come out, take out ads in newspapers, and hound him.

That was actually part of the reason why I thought he was a dark horse pick, that he could be a potentially very interesting candidate for 2028 because he had this ability to read the room and moderate his perspective, or at least try to find a reasonable perspective given what his constituency wanted. But yeah, this was a mistake for my, for my estimation. But it was one that he was forced into because AJC and numerous other outlets were constantly pressing him. And this didn't start last week. This didn't start with the last media cycle. It actually started a while ago when I said John Hossoff was actually my dark horse pick. Reporters would come up to him and demand that he disavow me ahead of time.

Third way, sent him a questionnaire all the way back, I believe in May, asking if he would disavow me. Why? We have not collaborated with one another. Specifically? They sent him a Hassan-Hyker questionnaire. Oh, my God. Yes. Yes.

They sent a questionnaire to John Osso. That's what I'm getting at is. I agree, but he doesn't have to answer. Politicians know how to tell reporters that fuck off all the time, including John Ossov. No, but he did answer. That's kind of what I'm getting at, is that this seems to be the central tent. of you want to be a leader, you want to be a streamer. It seems that the streaming seems detrimental

to being leading. And so I'm curious how you're working through this, because it seems to be a new phase of your career, right? It's one thing to fuck around on Twitch and just react to some crazy stuff. It's another. You know, you're fundraising, you're out there campaigning, you're going door to door. That is a different realm. And it does seem as if there's a little bit of incompatibility, and I'm curious how you're thinking about that. Yeah, I think the biggest incompatibility is actually stems from the format that I'm on. It's, you know, I speak for eight hours a day on hotly debated issues. Anyone and everyone can tune in anonymously and in real time send comments back.

There's also a lot of parasycial people out there. This is tough conversation to broach for a lot of boomers. But there are a lot of people who become inflamed and, and, uh, become obsessive, like hyper fixate on me, both positively and negatively. And some of those negative hyper fixators will then spend every waking moment on Twitter trying to kickstart the next outrage cycle. This was before mainstream media started getting involved more heavily on the fun. This is something that I've had to deal with for the past decade or so. It's just impossible to be a political commentator in this format without having people clip you out of context.

So I just see it as a unfortunate byproduct of doing this job. I see it in the same vein as getting swatted and getting stalked and harassed. Yeah. It sucks. It shouldn't happen, but it does, right? Yeah. And you also wouldn't have. I just have to take the hell on that.

Now, having said that. Yeah, I was going to say you also wouldn't have the position that you have as a leader if you didn't do what you do. Like, that's what enables you to marshal your community to make calls. calls and go canvas and fundraise for these candidates. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a really great organizing vehicle, especially if someone is stubborn enough to push through the negativity. And if someone is resilient enough, someone has a moral compass and they abide by that over

anything else, you can get on on the other side of that with a force that you can deploy towards specific policy positions that the overwhelming majority of Americans actually demand and yet politicians do not represent at all for some weird reason.

But I think that's ultimately the reason why I'm getting attacked all the time is because it's not just about Israel, obviously, it's about corporate lobbyists and their influence in Washington, D.C. as well, there's got to be a reason as to why so many politicians all around the country place the interest of corporate profits over the interests of the masses.

And someone has to be a platform for the anxiety and the enmity and the anger that people feel. And I am that platform. I am that megaphone. So yes, I have a lot of very powerful enemies in the process from Elon Musk to even the president has now mentioned me. But I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing because someone has to be out there fighting back. someone has to be out there marshalling the forces and galvanizing the masses and making sure that we make these necessary changes because I feel like this crisis is far too large to avoid. But in your analysis, you're assuming you're a net positive.

Has this made you question whether you're not making? I mean, I personally do, yes. And I'm fairly certain that many of these left insurgent candidates also feel that way, regardless of how hard they get punished for their affiliations. and yeah, I think DSA probably feels that way as well. Many, many members in my community and many members overall, many Americans overall, whether they have a positive feeling of me or a negative one, it doesn't matter if we were to implement some of the policies that we're advocating for,

that we're going to consistently continue pushing for, whether it be Medicare for all or an arms embargo on Israel, I'm fairly certain that this would have positive reverberations for all Americans, for all Americans, maybe even people all around the world, if we were to maybe scale back on our endless militarism. They don't have to like me. They can just get out of the way. Yeah, well, the interesting thing is,

if you look at the Democratic primaries in particular, I don't think there's no doubt that you were in that positive. And if you look at, they tried to make you a major issue in the Zoran versus Cuomo fight completely failed. They tried to make you a major issue in the Abdul versus Haley Stevens fight. not only that fail, I mean, you can look at Abdul's polls after you were made this sort of wedge issue in the Democratic primary is when he takes off, Mallory McMorrow takes the other side of that. She ultimately has to drop out and he's able to secure a victory. So do you think that

in the general election, do you think Republicans feel that this is working for them? Do you think that establishment Democrats feel that this is working for them? And what would your advice be to canids like, you know, the John Ossoffs of the world, if he could go back and do it over again, how should they handle questions about you? I think it's the reason why people are attacking me is because it has failed so far. It's because we are succeeding, right? When you go back to 2010, the Tea Party movement was backed by the Koch brothers. It was Asher-Turfed entirely.

And they only got four new members elected, two open. Seats, two incumbents were flipped in the Republican Party. We've had more than 10 at this point all around the country. And it's entirely grassroots funded. It's entirely backed by the people. And in some of these races, like Abdul's, there's also $74 million in outside expenditures coming in and attacking him. I mean, he was outspent 12 to 1, something along those lines.

And there are also races that I'm not involved in, where candidates that are left populace are outperforming expectations. Peggy Flanagan is a great example of this in Minnesota. She was outspent, I believe, six to one. Yeah. And, similar story with Angie Nixon in the, in the primaries as well. So this isn't just about me. I'm just the person that is the easiest to disparage as a movement leader. Right. And I'm very stubborn, so I'll push through it regardless. It doesn't feel great, but it doesn't really matter. But that is the reason.

There's a reason why they're attacking me. It's not because all of a sudden, I don't know, a congressperson in Las Vegas found out about who I was and started watching some clips and got really angry, right? I don't think that's the reason. I mean, someone is giving them notes on what to say. There's no world where someone like Debbie Stabenow in Michigan knows who I am, right? Someone told her, like, you have to speak on this.

This is a bad guy. Here are some of the quotes that he's made. You have to go out and condemn this guy. And Debbie comes out and says, this guy is a vicious anti-Semite. We got to deal with them. Do you think that Democrats handle these outrage cycles different than Republicans do? Like, do you think there's something for Democratic candidates to learn from the sort of fuck-you energy of Republicans to Trump on down? Yes, they need to lean into their base.

They need to lean into the anger that their base is representing right now. Democrats need to stop playing ball with cynical actors. Okay? I don't do it. I wish they wouldn't do it either. It's very frustrating to watch Democrats play politics at a time when the rules have changed. We live in the post-Trump universe. And I think there are a lot of people who still want to go back to a time when

when politicians could have reasonable discussion on television and people valued the truth. It's like, I value the truth. You should value the truth. You should always say the truth. But you also don't have to be so bashful. You don't have to be so scared. You don't have to be so meek. You don't have to take your opposition's cynical framing. Republicans know that that is a weakness. They have identified it and they successfully weaponize it against the Democrats all the time. this media cycle could have been handled very differently. Democrats could have come out from the start and been like, we're talking about a random Twitch streamer.

He campaigned with Abdul al-Sadd, he was a surrogate for Abdul al-Saddle-said. Sure, okay, look at your own side. Donald Trump is currently the president. You're talking, you're telling me that this Assam Piker guy, we are supposed to hold him a podcast or a Twitch streamer to a higher standard than the president of the United States of America, who isn't just saying unhinged things. I mean, he literally said he was going to do a genocide in Iran a couple months ago, right?

But he's also doing horrible things. He's doing unlimited amounts of violence. He's destroying the American economy. He's destroying the global economy. And we're supposed to sit here and constantly complain about a Twitchroomer. This is ridiculous. It's preposterous. If Democrats came out in unison and dealt with the issue with sincerity and with a little bit

with a little bit more anger, the same anger that their base feels, I think this story would have been packed up easily. They would have been able to deflect this barrage of Republican attacks. And then from that point on, the media could have me on to ask me to interrogate and examine my worldview. Why is that not happening? I mean, Jake Tapper had Max Miller on. Max Miller allegedly abused his wife and his two-year-old daughter, allegedly, right? There's a court proceeding that took place. This is the daughter of the Ohio Senator Bernie Marino. Jake Tapper had him on the show to interrogate him.

Republicans are not even talking about him right now. And that's partially because Democrats are too busy yelling about me. So it's not even just about like the Laura Loomers of the world, which I don't even think is an apt comparison. If I spoke about Jewish people in the way that Laura Loomer speaks about black people or Muslim people, I'd be shot. I'd go to prison, I think. And I don't feel that way, right? I don't. I feel like this is, she, she represents some of the most odious views that we're desperately trying to move on from, desperately trying to run away from, desperately trying to disavow. And yet she gets to operate

as a, as a attack dog for the Republican Party with regular frequency, partially because Democrats are constantly eating the bait and they're constantly worried about whatever the Republicans want them to be worried about. We have to stop apologizing to the Republicans. We have to stop leaning in to the cynical ways in which the Republicans choose to rip apart the base. We have to unite and become the anti-Trump coalition force that is necessary to fight back against Trumpism. to fight back against fascism, and to preserve what remains of American theoretical democracy. Time is running out, and I really wish that established Democrats

were smarter about this. In their mind, their belief is that an alliance and an elevation of someone like yourself with the past quote of America deserved 9-11, I know you've apologized for it. You did say it. I think you even said at the time, should I say it? Something like that. And so...

Fuck it. I'm saying it. Yeah, right. And so, you know, you're a young guy. you knew it was bad. You apologized for, I believe, the next day on Chang's show. The question then is they believe that to achieve the coalition is that to have someone who has said these things, someone who was part of, quote, woke one, even though I know you've kind of moved on from that, or at least in our last discussion, you certainly had, that this would be electorally detrimental to the independent voter. And, you know, what you've just said is that, oh, we need to give to the Democratic base. But there are a position.

things, not even just you said, things of Abdul have said that he's had to walk away from, which could be big problems for him coming into the midterm election. So how do you square that? If that you do have the, let's say a union guy, he voted for Trump, he's pissed off about prices, but he's not so down, let's say with woke one, defund the police, America deserved 9-11. What's your role in that if you prevent him necessarily from voting for Abdul al-Sayad? Yeah, so first of all, you know, I'm not going to be able to to captivate the tension of every single person, right? Like that I know that already. I know that I'm not appealing to like a 75 year old retiree, small business owner, finance executive. They're,

they're probably not going to be super fans of mine, right? I'm here for the under 45 young men in particular who never really see responsive politics. They never, they've developed too much apathy. They've gone out. They've protested. They maybe even voted for a, uh, couple Democrats that they didn't really like. They plugged their nose and they did it because they believe in harm reduction. And now they're sick and tired of it. Right. Now they're looking for an alternative.

They're looking for someone who's actually going to fight back, actually going to represent their needs. Right. So that's my goal. As far as, as far as how frustrating this could be to hold together a larger coalition, we were, again, taking for granted a lot of these other voters. A lot of these people that I'm bringing on to not only participate in their civic duty, but also participate in a more meaningful matter in getting others to come out and vote.

On the other side, of course, politics are about addition, not subtraction. So I'm totally on board with bringing on people who are independence, people who have different opinions to me into this broad coalition. It's those on the other side. It's those on the right, the right wing of the Democratic Party, the right wing in the consulting class

that actually oppose our involvement in any way, shape, or form. That's the real issue. I want to build a big tent. They don't. I understand that we have to organize the masses to make sure that we have a strong enough base of support to get this agenda done. I believe in democracy. They do not. They don't want to

hear from the masses. They don't want to hear about their discontent. They just want everybody to shut up and vote for the Democrats. And they're very frustrated that now there is a massive platform like yours as well that actually expresses this discontent with regular frequency and is growing and is making up for the limited credibility that mainstream media has at this moment. Well, and the real problem for them, too, is that your views now are much more aligned with the 70-year-old retiree in the Democratic Party base than the Democratic establishment is at this point. And so, you know, that's why you pose a particular threat to them. My last question for you, Hassan, is just, you know, do you have any other plans in terms of

tactics to fight back? Are you pursuing a defamation lawsuit against Scott Jennings, for example? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I'm continuing along with that. And we'll see, we'll see where this goes because I feel like it has gotten, it's gotten completely out of control. I think someone has to, like, someone has to fight back. Someone has to fight back. Someone has to fight back because I just, we can't go on like this. We have no consensus reality. We have no consensus reality. I get so frustrated about this. I spent a good deal of my, my time every day trying to identify misinformation and disinformation that runs among on the internet and try to get people to understand what's actually going on. And it's so frustrating to see the way that people

trafficking defamation and slander and smears. And I think it's partially because no one's really pushing back. No one's really fighting back. In a different timeline, I think the way this would work is you'd get punished for it. If you were actively getting paid to slander people, mainstream outlets would probably say, all right, we're going to make sure that you either recalibrate your commentary or you're done. You're out. And yet, Scott Jennings, I would say, goes on CNN every night specifically for that purpose. So we can be an attack dog for Donald Trump. So we can audition to be the White House Press Secretary, right? And this is this weird mutually beneficial relationship for

CNN executives who want to win favor with the Ellison's and CNN top anchors and top producers who want to make sure that they don't get fired in the Ellison purchase, right? So they're playing that role. But I think in the process of playing that role, they are destroying what remains the credibility of CNN as an institution. People already, people on the right and many independents already despise CNN. And now they're going to burn their credibility with a lot of liberals as well. And I don't know if it's, if, if it's worth it. I don't want to live in a world where there is, there's no reliability in mainstream outlets. Unfortunately, we live in that world right now for a bunch of different issues, right? When it comes to American foreign policy, I don't expect any of these major

outlets, these legacy publishers to actually do serious investigative reporting. Every now and then they'll do it in an effort to regain some of that credibility, right? There'll be like one article or two investigative reports that come out, maybe months after the fact. And we'll say, wow, that's interesting. I can't believe New York Times reported on this finally. But I wish that they were there. I wish that they were there from the start because this is a real crisis.

Yeah. Well, and the thing is, you as a streamer, you give them a lot of commentary to work with. But the truth of the matter is, what they did to you, they could do to anyone. They could take, I mean, the same sentiment you expressed about Jewish Americans, something sovereign I have both expressed many times on this show and is thoroughly, should be thoroughly uncontroversial. It would be easy enough to clip something out of context, put it out there in the world and completely mischaracterize what any public commentator says. They did the Mark Rovalho. Yeah. They did the Mark Rovalho.

at the same time they were doing it to me. And they did it to Abdul. The hurt people, hurt people comment. If you watch the four minute video that he put out, because the first day of the synagogue attack, Abdul comes out with a statement, just straightforward condemnation, completely unacceptable because it is, right? It's completely unacceptable. People should never have to fear of an attack when they're in a place of worship. Like, that's ridiculous, right? So he comes out with the condemnation. And then the next day, he explains the cycle of violence. He explains the cycle of violence. And in the process of explaining the cycle of violence and how, you know,

violent incidents caused violent and unacceptable, completely unacceptable violent retaliation against, you know, civilians, against people who didn't participate in this in any meaningful manner whatsoever. And that the person who did this was a heinous person, was a small person, all this stuff. He does this like four minute video. And they just nail down the hurt people, hurt people quote to make it seem like Abdul was just like disparaging the concerns of of Jewish folk in Michigan. He did apologize though. You know, he did. Yeah. Sometimes you have to sometimes you literally cave to the mob.

It's just, it sucks, but it's the truth. You, you, when you're running for office, sometimes you're just going to have to say, look, I didn't intend for this to turn into a, a massive problem. I didn't intend for you to misunderstand my position. I shouldn't have said anything. And that's what he did. And I hope that people see that as humility and grace and understand that he's not this like scary Islamist, jihadist guy that he's being presented as. That doesn't fit with your fighting energy earlier. This is just kind of, you know, because to me it seems like, you know, look, Abdul frequently just delete stuff and pretends that he never said. He outright lies about what he said about defund the police. Just delete stuff that he said about

transgenderism and kids, decides not to talk about it, talk about adult circumcision. In this case, he felt like he had to apologize. I don't know, I just read it a little differently. It's like it's pretty clear that he did think that he screwed up, even though I agree with you necessarily on the sentiment. Do you disagree with the sentiment, though? No, no, listen, I'm not one of this is pro-cancel culture freaks. I just look at his behavior and I'm like, okay, so he'll lie about, I didn't say defund the police.

He'll lie about one of his previous past positions on transgender, you know, circumcited, and conflated to circumcision. But on this one, he's like, oh, I have to apologize. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, it seems like he feels, especially considering what happened with this Jeremy Moss situation, and now with this. And then yesterday he's speaking at some Jewish Democrats event. And, you know, he's doing his absolute best to make sure he's like, I'm here.

I love you all, et cetera. It seems to him, for him having said screw you to many other attacks in the past, he seems to believe that this is a problem. That's all I'm saying. That's part of the reason, you know, in this interview, I'm curious in that assessment of his behavior, he is behaving not as if this is like a humility exercise, but as in this is an actual electoral problem for me in this race. Yeah, I don't know to what degree it's a serious problem. I think we're just reading the tea leaves at this point.

Yeah, but I mean, that's just politics. That's just politics. You got to win over as broad a coalition as possible. there's a real crisis here if we allow someone like Mike Rogers to come into office who is going to be a rubber stamp on Trump's agenda. Someone who has actually been an advocate

for mass surveillance since the post 9-11 days. Someone who is an advocate for going to war, someone who was an advocate for going to war with Iran. And now we're in that war with Iran. These are people who are going to try to run away from much more nefarious positions

than people who demonstrate the basic American mentality, which is, I think medical decisions should be kept between a patient and a doctor. Because that's what the transgender issue is all about at the end of the day. I don't really care about what people have said in the past as far as like how woke they were. And you said I was a trafficker in woke 1.0, right? I mean, I got yelled at quite a bit from people who were not even to my left necessarily, but people who presented themselves as to my left at the time because I would constantly say, I'm not saying Latin X. I'm not doing all this and that. I didn't make a big deal about it,

though. And I didn't like, you know, humiliate people for trying to be as accommodating as possible. But I understood that there was some social excesses that were taking place. But at the end of the day, I think we have a limited amount of time on God's green earth. I'm not going to spend it yelling at people who wanted to be as accommodating as possible to others and definitely got a little feverish at times, especially when on the other side, there are people who are just as hysterical but also immoral. Because let's be real, I'm a leftist. I believe that this position is broadly the morally correct position.

the morally correct side of the political spectrum, the political ideology, even if they're being annoying, I can, you know, engage in comradly discussions and say, hey, maybe don't present yourself this way. I think this is not very helpful for our cause. I don't think we're, you're winning a lot of people over to our side. And those are productive moments of discourse on our side. It's an internal discussion. But I don't think we should be spending a great deal of time if we're leftist. We should be spending a great deal of time constantly talking about how like people wanted to, people wanted to restructure the, the police budgets in this country that have expanded endlessly and have militarized heavily and are not, you know, producing the results they're

supposed to, even though crime is actually down. So I guess to certain degree, they are producing some results. So I can't really hate on that right now. But having said that, my position on this is this. Okay, my position on policing, for example, is do your job. There's three jobs in this country, three professions in this country where you get rewarded for failure. It's policing, it's CEOs, and as politicians. They fail upwards all the time. They're allowed to fail. Your car gets stolen. You call up the cops. You're like, can you please help me with this? And they look at you like, you've asked them the most unacceptable thing of all time. I'm like, come on, man, this is your job. That's what I want. I want cops to do their jobs. Some of them are doing their jobs as a way.

Who releases the guy who steals the car, though? It's an interesting question, right? Who released the guy who stole the car? Is that what you said? Yeah, well, I was like, how did exactly get to the point where the guy's on the street? And maybe he's been released on no cash bill, let's say, for example. Look, we don't have nearly enough time to debate the transit police issue. This is the fun part where you and I, you know, don't even get me started about marijuana, even though I didn't even smoke.

Well, that was going to be my parting shot is I just wanted to remind you. that when you were canvassing, you went across the state of Wisconsin. And you made a great pitch. You said, Francesca Hong's going to legalize weed. And so I watched with great amusement as she lost in that primary

after you promised these people that she was going to legalize weed. And so maybe it's not the electoral benefit that you may have thought, Mr. Piker, to go around and from. That lady was wearing a wheat t-shirt and she really liked it. So it certainly worked. You just had to do it.

You had to go around there. And I message you, so you just had to throw the wheat thing in there. And so I just wanted to remind you that it didn't work. And so maybe you all... She lost because of that. She lost because of Thanksgiving and she lost because of her pro-weed position. Yeah. I'm out here spinning that narrative.

All right, Hassan, thank you so much for getting up early for us. I know you have to go. So thank you for us. Thank you for having. Yeah, it's our pleasure. Thank you guys for watching. As you can assume, the show is already late, so sorry. It's been a long interview, but we wanted to make sure we did it justice.

There'll be a great show for everybody tomorrow. Ryan and Emily, AMA. Tune in for that. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.