The Pope, the President, and Piker
A quick sanity check to start the week:
A senior Trump administration disaster response official is doubling down on his claims that he was teleported to a Waffle House and claims the president’s Truth Social platform is blocking his posts about the incident. Meanwhile, Fox News is reporting that Trump’s short list to replace Pam Bondi as AG includes Jeanine Pirro and Alina Habba (who, despite the rank absurdity of the idea, is apparently launching a PR campaign to get the job.)
On Sunday, the first American Pope used his first Easter to deliver a powerful rebuke to those who invoke God to justify war.
“Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace!” Leo said. “Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them! We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent. Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people.”
“What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world.” he lamented.
Meanwhile, the President of the United States celebrated Easter Sunday by bleating an F-bomb laden threat to commit war crimes.1
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.
Some perspective seems in order. We are not strangers to the crazy. We are inured to the vulgar and the psychotic. But, on the ever-shifting continuum of derangement, this may actually have been the most demented utterance in the history of the presidency — but the week is still young.
So happy F**kin’ Monday.
And a quick reminder: You are not the crazy ones.
The Piker (Lack of) Principle
I should probably warn you in advance that what follows may be NSFW.
In case you missed it this weekend’s contretemps over the left-wing influencer was sparked by this quote from Third Way’s Jonathan Cowan:
“If people really are arguing that the price of winning is becoming like a bigoted misogynist like Hasan Piker, then I’ll take not winning,” Cowan told me. “What is the point of reviving the Democratic party so it can compete in an age of right-wing populism, if the price of that is you mainstream bigoted, anti-American, misogynistic voices?”2
The lines were quickly drawn when some folks of the Never Trump resistance declared that this was a bad message for Democrats. Given the state of things, they argued, Democrats should be open to folks like Piker and his large on-line following.
In many ways, the defenses of keeping Piker in the “big tent“ were remarkably similar to the arguments on the right about keeping Nick Fuentes in that “big tent“.
So we get the claim that condemning Piker’s vicious bigotry and illiberalism would somehow be “shunning” his millions of online followers. This was bullshit on the right; and it’s BS on the left.
But the debate over Piker is not merely an academic or online exercise: L’Affaire Piker is an immediate problem because one of the leading Democratic candidates for Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, has invited Piker to join him at a campaign rally — formally associating his campaign with the far-left influencer.
Last week the Third way’s Cowan sent a letter to El-Sayed asking six questions:
This is a just a taste of what Democrats can expect if they listen to Piker’s defenders. Bizarrely, though, Republicans who want to tar Dems with the Piker brush are getting loud and active support from the left — and from folks desperate to be able to sit at the cool kids’ table.
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Before we dive in deeper, here are a couple of quick points.
This debate is not a distraction; it is precisely the thing that healthy political parties should be having. And, frankly, the idea that we absolutely should not embrace bigoted, anti-democratic, misogynistic voices is pretty foundational for many Never Trumpers, who walked away from their party precisely because principles were more important than political allegiance.
The MAGA GOP — which has no enemies on the right and has embraced the denizens of the fever swamp — should be a cautionary tale. Not a role model.
You need to know who Piker really is, what he advocates, and what he has said.
On Sunday Rep. Ro Khanna argued that “Our party leaders should not be cancelling anti-establishment voices and build a broad pro-democracy coalition. Even scolds welcome!” But this was deeply misleading on several levels. No one is saying that Piker should be “cancelled.” The question is whether Democrats should campaign with him, invite him to their rallies, and treat him as ally.3
And it is wholly disingenuous to describe Piker merely as an “antiestablishment” voice or simply a “scold” or that he is a part of a “broad prodemocracy coalition.”
There is also an intellectually dishonest attempt to make criticism of Piker all about Israel (which is increasingly unpopular among Democrats). As one Reddit user posted:
[The claim that criticism of Hasan is some sort of “pro-Israel psyop” is]" “probably the stupidest attempt to invalidate criticism of Hasan Piker. Yes, I think he is fostering an anti-Semitic community, and supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis is actually bad. But even leaving that aside, he is still a terrible advocate for the left.”
“Hasan is an illiberal communist. He believes that our liberal democracy is a problem and should be replaced. He doesn’t hide the fact that he advocates for softer social policies to spread propaganda more effectively to a broader audience and to radicalize them.”
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So, let’s review the record of this “anti-establishment” “scold”:
On one of his shows aired days after Oct. 7, Piker told off a listener who condemned the massacre, saying “Bloodthirsty violent pig dog, suck my d–-k.” In a May 2024 stream, Piker also minimized reports of the prevalence of sexual assault during the Oct. 7 attacks, saying “It doesn’t matter if rape happened on October 7th. It doesn’t change the dynamic for me.”
His defense of Putin’s seizure of Crimea:
“What do you call Crimea?” Piker asked in one show. “I call it a part of Russian territory, bitch. I call it Crimea River, a Russian river. The annexation of Crimea was absolutely a justifiable annexation.”
Hasan Piker on African American voters:
Hasan Piker on date rape: Hasan Piker says date rape is “a bit better” if it’s rich men doing it to rich women
He says that in a “utilitarian perspective,” if it’s just rich men date-raping rich women, we’re isolating them from broader society and they’re only doing it to each other.
Hasan Piker on Dan Crenshaw and the “brave” Mujahadeen who took out his eye.
‘What the f**k is wrong with this dude? Didn’t he go to war and literally lose his eye because some Mujahideen - a brave f*****g solider - f****d his eyehole with their d**k?’
‘Isn’t that how he f***ing lost his dumba** eye, because he got his f***ing eye hole f***ed, by a brave soldier?
Crenshaw, a Navy SEAL veteran, lost his eye in an IED explosion while serving in Afghanistan.
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Unfortunately, this really only scratches the surface.
NSFW: Here is a Vietnamese refugee telling her story of suffering under a communist government. Hasan Piker insults her — “Fuck you old lady. Shut the fuck up you stupid idiotic old lady. Suck my dick, old lady. God damn, Yo, fuck this refugee” — and hurls racist dog whistles at her, telling her to go back to where she came.
Centrism Fan Acct 🔹@Wilson__ValdezSince we're being forced to do more Hasan Piker discourse, I just need you to watch the greatest Hasan video ever published. Featuring: "Fuck you old lady. Shut the fuck up you stupid fucking idiotic old lady." "Suck my dick old lady." "God damn. Yo, fuck this refugee!"2:14 PM · Mar 29, 2026 · 1.01M Views334 Replies · 1.01K Reposts · 8.53K LikesBesides shilling for Putin, Piker is also notorious for shilling for China’s oppressive regime:
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Earlier in his visit, Piker fawned over the ceremonial sunrise flag-raising near Mao Zedong’s portrait at the Tiananmen gate.
“This is awesome,” he said. “Like, like, I just don’t, like, I, I’m not—I don’t have any sort of patriotism in my heart … for America.”
Piker makes no secret of the fact that he is a Lenin-stan. The Bulwark’s Cathy Young posted:
Here’s Hasan Piker extensively quoting Vladimir Lenin -- indubitably one of the top 10 monsters of the 20th C -- as an example of someone who led a “successful revolution.”
“Between that and Hamas, the guy clear has a huge boner for mass murderers.”
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Remarked Sarah Longwell: “That’s the guy. I do not think that any Democrat should look to include them in their coalition.”
Frankly, it’s hard to see how this is even remotely a close call.
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Exit take: A few questions for the advocates of bringing-Piker-into-the tent:
Name one swing election where Piker’s involvement would help Democrats win?
Name one congressional district anywhere in America where Piker’s involvement would help Democrats win?
Name one state where Piker’s involvement would make it more, not less, likely that the Democrats would win?
Please take your time.
Finally
Let’s give Mona Charen the last word. ”Why Democrats Should Shun Hasan Piker.”
Tim [Miller] argues that Democrats will be helped electorally by appealing to angry constituencies such as those who tune in to Piker. On the contrary, Democrats need to win over people who previously voted for Trump but are more moderate in outlook, as Tim has often argued in the past. As Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who defeated her opponent in 2025 by 15 points, admonished a few years ago, the words “defund the police” had badly damaged Democratic candidates. She continued, “We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. . . . We lost good members because of that.” As it happens, Piker is a fan of “defund the police.”
Even if it were true that Democrats would profit electorally by becoming a little more hateful, a little more misogynistic, a little friendlier to America’s authoritarian antagonists, a little more vulgar, and a little dumber—is it worth it? What kind of victory is that? We’ve seen one party lose itself that way. If the other falls into the same sewer, it’s game over.
Monday dogs
Frankly, I think we could all use a belly scratch today.
Kind of an amazing headline in the NYT: “Trump Revels in Threats to Commit War Crimes in Iran.”
He is talking not just about civilian sites with military uses, which can be considered legitimate targets. In his speech on Wednesday, he said he would “hit each and every one” of the country’s power plants, “probably simultaneously.” The next day, after the American military destroyed a large bridge near Tehran, Iran’s capital, he exulted on social media: “Much more to follow!” At least 13 civilians were killed and 95 injured, an Iranian official said.
No other recent American president has talked so openly about committing potential war crimes, legal experts, historians and former U.S. officials say. Wartime American presidents and their aides have usually insisted they were trying to follow international and U.S. military law, even if they violated it in some cases.
International laws aimed at preventing the horrors of total war are codified in a series of agreements, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter. Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure violate those. So does pillaging a country, which Mr. Trump has suggested he might do by taking Iran’s oil.
The leaders of the centrist Democratic-aligned Third Way describe him this way:
Mr. Piker is often called “progressive,” but that does violence to the term. A self-identified Marxist, he has referred to ultra-Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” employed antisemitic dog whistles (“bloodthirsty, violent pig-dog”) against an anti-Hamas viewer of his stream, compared liberal Zionists to “liberal Nazis,” and said “Hamas is a thousand times better” than the Israeli state.
Mr. Piker’s depravity doesn’t stop there. His misogyny is indistinguishable from that of far-right influencers. He believes “America deserved 9/11.” He praised the Chinese Communist Party, saying “in terms of good governance, there’s a lot that we can learn from the way they perform out there.”
Mr. Piker is anti-American, antiwomen, anti-Western and antisemitic. No Democrat should engage with him. All should seek to push him to the fringe, where he belongs.
Former Congressman Joe Walsh fired back at Ro Khanna:
@RoKhanna, I have no interest in CANCELING anyone. But I believe in CONDEMNING anyone who praises Communist dictators, hates on America, is anti-Israel, and hates on Jews. To call Hasan Piker an “anti-establishment” voice and ignore the hate he spews is just wrong. I’m all about a “broad pro-democracy coalition,” but I draw a line at bigots & antisemites…you know, people like Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens, and Hasan P
I am a left-of-Charlie Palestinian-American, and I am both terrified and depressed at the advice that I should hitch my hopes to a vicious troll like Piker. I don't give a rat's ass about his popularity.
I am so sick of ignorant, foul mouthed, hate filled, empty human beings who get attention by being thoughtless and obscene about any topic actually being considered anything but appalling and ridiculous.