Hasan Piker Has Thoughts on the Hasan Piker Discourse

25:21I think that's a far larger systemic force that is going to make the National Rebellion look inconsequential in comparison to the greater harm. Same with, for example, the ANC. The ANC had a militant wing called the MK. I'm not going to try to even attempt to say it. And Nelson Mandela went to prison and was imprisoned by the apartheid state. and mk and the anc did a lot of stuff to collaborators the collaborators that are worked alongside the apartheid uh administration they would uh they had a practice called uh necklacing where they would put a tire around the necks of collaborators and light it on fire it was heinous practice um and it was of course condemned after the fact but none of the people that were engaged in it if i recall correctly even in the truth and reconciliation committee were actually legally charged for it.

26:15Because there's this understanding when we look back at like some of the more heinous things that resistance groups have done and militancies have done, we match that up against the far larger, far broader systematic violence that an entire people have been subjected to. And it makes me feel silly to consistently, you know, talk about what Hamas has done, especially when there has been an October 7 times a thousand, if not more than a thousand at this point in the hands of Israel against the Palestinian population in its entirety. I mean, they're doing an October 7th to Lebanon right now as we speak.

26:51Just take it from the Palestinian perspective. Don't you think Hamas's decision to attack on October 7th and to massacre civilians on October 7th was a catastrophic mistake for them, for the Palestinian people? Like, do you think the Palestinian people are in any way better off than they were before October 7th? No, of course not. But at the end of the day... That's why I'm asking more. It's more for me like a... Resistance movements, wherever they are, need to come up with strategies. Yeah. Right? And I think... I guess my view is, and I understand that there is a huge power imbalance here, but I think that resistance movements that engage in, you know, mass slaughter or civilian targeting and all that, Like they just have less success than than than resistance movements that are nonviolent.

27:43I mean, it's obviously in history. Oh, I know we've we've had a revolution here. I get it. I wouldn't agree. I get armed revolution. Yeah. But yeah, but but I do think if you look back over the last hundred years, nonviolent movements have been more successful than armed resistance movements. That's just I think they were hand in hand. But I think it was might have been Kwame Torre who said it. You know, you can only you can only shame someone who has a conscience. and if your enemy has none, it's impossible to get them to react to your civil movement because the Palestinians have tried civil movements.

28:15I mean, the Great March of Return where hundreds of Palestinians were sniped directly by the Israeli occupation forces and they openly celebrated that too. They said, we have an accounting of every single bullet that we shot at the Palestinians and then they had to delete that. I mean, this is just the tip of the iceberg. as far as the war crimes galore that we're talking about, because even the everyday maintenance of apartheid, which Israel is, is an incredibly violent endeavor. That maintenance requires you to constantly be a military force that is ever-present, that is dominating and ritualistically humiliating and subjugating millions of people.

28:53So my perspective is always looking at this from the perspective of the people that are being dominated, rather than placing a lot of the emphasis on structural violence or rather on state-backed violence, which we have a predisposition to lean into no matter what. Someone fights back against a cop, the automatic suspicion is, well, the police are actually maintaining law and order, so it must be a criminal, right? That might not always be the case. So I like to look at this stuff with a more open-minded framework where I can try to figure out exactly what led to a day like October 7 that was unbelievably violent, right?

29:37And I think it's pretty clear that 75 years at that point of ethnic cleansing and apartheid and, you know, subjugation was a big part of the driving force. And as far as Hamas goes, we oftentimes talk about just Hamas. It's almost like a catch-all term. Hamas is only one component of the Palestinian resistance. The Al-Aqsa flood was actually conducted not only by Hamas, but Palestinian Islamic Jihad's own militant forces, PFLP, DFLP, and numerous other, even including Fatah militias as well that still existed in Gaza. So this was a military operation initially that was conducted by virtually every single active organization inside of Gaza.

30:21so it's not that's why I always say like Hamas is not an alien entity in the way that we think about them or we say oh they are uh they're these like evil oppressors of the Palestinian people are there disagreements within the Palestinian uh coalition against Hamas's governance absolutely no people are a monolith but the only the only thing that every single Palestinian with the exception of those who work for like the Atlantic Council or whatever that are there to just, you know, do regime propaganda, do Israel propaganda. With the exception of those people, every Palestinian I've ever talked to, Christian Palestinians, who might even have major disagreements with Hamas, who might even be critical of Hamas, will always say the number one thing that we want is the end to the occupation, is the end to the apartheid.

31:10The number one thing we want is dignity and sovereignty. and that is what Hamas has been trying to achieve militarily. The message that you just said that Palestinians want, end to the occupation, dignity, self-determination. Yeah. For people who are not as familiar with the issue as you, but that you want to reach and that you want to, because I assume the purpose here is to build a movement that supports Palestinian self-determination. And if I was someone who didn't know a lot about it and I knew that Hamas committed October 7th and then I heard a message that Hamas is better than Israel, I would be less receptive to the person delivering that message than I would someone saying, look what Israel has done and what the Palestinian people really want.

32:03aside from this organization that is serving them poorly is most Palestinians just want dignity and they want an end to the impression. Like I would feel like, okay, I could get behind that and I'm going to be more attracted to that message. I have a policy of saying the truth unconditionally and standing by my principles, even if that's sometimes hard to hear. And that's precisely what I did after October 7, on October 8, when I went live and talked about the systematic forces that have led to October 7. And a lot of people were not receptive to that message at all. And some of which actually became haters of mine and left the community where I lost a third of my entire community for like the first year of Israel's maximum violence, Israel's genocide, where people simply did not want to hear that message at all.

32:55but I know and I knew back then that as long as I say the truth that one history will vindicate me and two as long as I say the truth there will always be people who are more charitable and more receptive to that regardless because I see no reason in in sheltering people from that perspective do I obviously manage in a much longer format in a much longer conversation like the one that we're having. Yes, I am obviously more capable of explaining that position. But I think saying what I said there, that Hamas is a thousand lives better than Israel, cuts across that narrative in a way that I think even liberals have to think about.

33:35Because someone who is immediately reactive to that kind of sentiment that goes, wait a minute, but Israel is a liberal democracy. It's the only democracy in the region. Why is he saying that? they understand at least one part of it where they think, okay, he's saying Hamas killed 1 ,200 people. A third of them were soldiers. A third of them were military people who were active duty in the military. And then civilians as well. Israel has done that a thousandfold to the Palestinians so I think like even in the most reductive ways uh even in the most um reductive ways to try to comprehend what I'm saying there people can understand that like I think people are not stupid we assume that they're stupid I will tell you well I'll tell you how it landed with me because I was like it wasn't like oh wait why did he say that Israel's some great I was like Israel has committed just horrific atrocity like what I like I you know I have moved so far on this but I'm like Hamas is they're fucking what did they do like October 7th was catastrophic for them it was also like we've all seen the images like like kids and and people and a lot of like very these are like leftist peaceniks Israelis at a concert and they fucking massacred them and I'm like these people are like I just want to have and I do think it's important in politics to have like universal principles right which is like if if violence violence is always wrong civilian violence is always wrong targeting children and women always wrong no matter which side does it right and i do think that it's important not just from a moral perspective but from like a building a political coalition perspective to say if i think one thing is wrong one action is wrong on this side then it also has to be wrong on the other side yeah um even if there is an obvious power imbalance and even if there is a history but we don't always do that is my point oh i know we don't not we don't do that when the dust is settled we don't do that when uh the the historic forces have played itself out and we look back at it um and i i don't see a reason not to to apply that same interpretation because i see both uh i see the civilians on both sides as human beings worthy of dignity and i think a lot of people don't realize that they do have a little bit of an implicit bias where we've been trained as Americans living here during the global war on terror to collateralize one side and to see the other side as like a European style country that's under attack.

36:10So we have the capacity to see the violence that Israelis are subjected to as like real human beings, maybe even your neighbor dying in the hands of scary brown people, as opposed to Palestinians that die, entire city blocks reduced to rubble, is something that we've seen so many times on the TV, whether it be the Syrian civil war, whether it be Iraq, Afghanistan. So we automatically collateralize the lives of those Palestinians. So that's part of the reason why - And I will say that those images are, I think the most, like that is what personally has moved me the most is seeing those images. Like I remember like in post-October 7th and we talked about it a lot here and the student protest movement and all the craziness over that.

36:58And I remember thinking like it was, there was that Columbia student who I think was eventually suspended or expelled or whatever for saying, like, you're lucky I didn't kill more Zionists and all that, you know. And I remember thinking to myself, like I, someone says something like that and it's just a reaction that I can't even, like it's just a human reaction to be like, oh maybe i don't want to be with these like this is bad i don't want to hear like that's now you want to kill zionists or you know what like that's fucking crazy that's hurting your movement yeah no i've been look here's the thing i've been around protest movements my uh whole professional media career for a very long time i've been doing this for a decade plus there's going to be cringe people there's going to be passionate people that say unhinged things that i totally disagree with yeah at the end of the day um this is exactly what happened with black lives matter as well where there'd be someone that says, like, yeah, fry them like bacon, and then the media would laser in on that to disparage the entire movement.

37:54So I have a policy of looking at what the actual movement represents. Do I identify with those values? Do I agree with them? Rather than key offenders that have said something that I consider to be heinous as well, right? And I don't spend a lot of time or put a lot of emphasis on people like that because I've been to these campuses. I've been to these encampments and they were some of the best organized movements I have ever seen. They had messaging discipline. They had all of the right things. They had protest marshals that would keep everything intact. They refused to talk to the media unless they had someone who was doing communication for the entire encampment that would talk to the media.

38:38And they still got brutalized. UCLA is the one I went to. I couldn't believe it. Like these, you know, pro-Israel groups were, they set up these massive, they set up this like massive auditorium, or not auditorium, I don't know what it's called, but like a projector where they were blasting October 7 footage and calling these student encampment, student protesters like heinous words. They threw fireworks into the encampment. They brutalized these students. And these weren't students that were doing that. These were pro-Israel people that just came from around the area. Right. And and I couldn't believe what I saw where like the media's coverage was either both sides in it or oftentimes siding with the pro-Israel with the pro-Israel people.

39:24So like for me, again, it's I look at the values and I also don't place a lot of emphasis on like whatever the media narrative is because we love doing that. Yeah. We love having a conversation about like whose feelings are being heard in the Western world when the conversation should be about, you know, who's dying in Gaza.

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41:19On Zionism, you know, being an anti-Zionist, when you say you're an anti-Zionist, are you rejecting the premise that a Jewish homeland is a legitimate project at all? Or is your anti-Zionism specifically about the policies and practices of the Israeli state as it exists today? I think Zionism is a fascist ideology. it really it truly is and how do you because I do I think part of the issue I think this is like a definitional issue for two oh yeah for sure obviously but I do think that like there's probably a lot of I think a lot of probably secular liberals and even secular Jews in this country who think of Zionism as they do like I like the idea of a Jewish homeland yeah and do not think ethnostate do not think any of that other stuff and then there's people who you know who very much define it as no it must always be a Jewish majority state.

42:11And if democracy and equal rights come second, then so be it. Yeah. Well, that is what has happened, right? Which is de facto, that's what we have right now. It's de facto what we have right now. And it was something that we were always going ahead in the direction of because, I mean, even Stalin was a big advocate of Israel initially. I mean, they were the ones who trafficked weapons in 1947 that were used on Palestinian villages by way of Czechoslovakia, right? Illegally going through the blockade. There was this idea that like initially labor Zionism and, you know, Ben-Gurion was a socialist, right?

42:48Like this was going to be like almost like a Marxist project, but it was just ethnic cleansing from the start. And my assessment on Zionism as an ideology is not that different from Albert Einstein's assessment of Zionism. Because when he saw Diyar Yassin and the violence that the early Zionist brigades were engaging in, Haganah, Irgun, Leahy, these militia movements, before the IDF existed, before Israel existed. And he was actually asked to be the first president of Israel. He wrote about what Zionism was turning into. And he warned that what he was seeing was exactly what the Nazis were doing.

43:31And he warned about it. He said, if we do not have a commitment to binationalism, if we do not have a commitment to the people that are already living there, the atrocities that I'm seeing that, you know, Zionist brigades are engaging in right now, committing right now against the Palestinians is going to turn into exactly what the Nazis have done. And he was right. He saw it ahead of time. I mean, he knew what the Nazis were. He lived through it. Right. And so my perspective is shaped by people who have done either extensive research on this, like Israeli historian like Ilan Pape, Avi Shalem, or people who have lived through this process, many of which are Jews who have lived through this process and could not comprehend it.

44:21One of the first people that I interviewed after October 7 was Dr. Ofer Kasseff. He is the only Jewish anti-Zionist in the Knesset. There's a Palestinian citizen of Israel who's also an anti-Zionist in the Knesset. They have like two people, basically. It's a lone voice, but they exist, right? I care about the perspective of people like that as well. so I develop a better understanding of what it looks like to have to fight fascist forces in the country that you're a part of, in the country that you love, in the country that you want to change towards a better future, towards a better trajectory.

44:57Because I see it as the same fight that I'm fighting here in America. Because Zionism, at the end of the day, like I said, is an ethno-religious supremacist ideology that is exterminationist. And it's, in many respects, no different than what we see in MAGA. right christian nationalism that is a fascist ideology i don't think you would disagree with that right no but and there's i mean there's also ethno-nationalism israel has like laws that have put this into place yeah but like yeah there's de facto ethno-nationalism in in many different countries around the world there's you could make the same critique of hindu nationalism the turkish treatment of the kurds again right things that i japanese immigration policy things that i oppose vehemently and things that I talk about extensively, oftentimes people will yell at me for my criticism of both of those things.

45:45Yeah. You've said you abhor anti-Semitism. You've drawn a distinction between being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Yeah. I take that at face value. Here's the harder question. Like, where exactly do you draw the line? Because I think most serious people agree that anti-Zionism isn't automatically anti-Semitism. Yeah. But there is disagreement where the line runs in specific cases. And I think, you know, some of your rhetoric whether it's out of context or not has landed in the gray zone like calling ultra orthodox jews inbred comparing liberal zionists to liberal nazis the pig dogs uh comments the pig dog one is i i didn't even know that was like a thing did you know that it was like no yeah i don't because even jake tapper when he brought it up he's like i don't know what this is but he was like clearly reading a quote from in front of him he's like the adion gave me well i know i went through it and i'm like i've seen it and there's like well there's a it's it's one of I didn't even, it's one of those things where I was just like, I don't know.

46:38I guess the larger question is like, how do you think about, as you're talking about this, drawing the line in a way where you're like, okay, if I'm going to, you know, I'm anti-Zionist, I want to make this argument, I want to talk about the project, but I really don't want anyone to take it as anti-Semitic, not just because it hurts your feelings, but because you're trying to build a political movement. Yeah. Well, it's not just because I want to build a political movement. is because I also genuinely abhor anti-Semitism. So it's a great question. It's one that I answer all the time because this is a real problem right now where like anti-Semitism is growing in this country.

47:13It's undeniable as it historically always has whenever Israel does these sieges, the mowing of the lawn operations and it's doing it and it's tying itself to Judaism in this very sinister way. And people see that and they think, okay, well, you know, this is the Jewish state doing this. maybe it's the Jews, right? There's already a lot of people that have these opinions about, you know, Jewish billionaires and Jewish millionaires controlling the media, controlling the banking system. So like it pairs up perfectly with what they're seeing. And we've definitely seen a great deal of that, right? So what I try to do is stress the importance and showcase that this attitude is not monolithic inside of the American Jewry.

48:00The reason why I think it's really important, even though I'm a Muslim guy, so most people, when they hear me say that, they don't give a shit, right? Because they're like, you're goisplaining.

48:13But the reason why I stress that importance is because it's true. I mean, there's a funny saying. it's like what two jews three opinions right like no group are no group is monolithic and jewish americans certainly are not they have very different assessments of what's going on and we see that we see that in the polling that is conducted right we see it within israel as well yeah yeah exactly no i mean well israel is a little bit different because like at that at a certain point there is an overwhelming force of people who are on well you're there it's a different perspective. Yeah. So what I what I show always to people is that there's a difference between a lot of Jewish institutions and how Jews actually feel.

48:58And I actually sometimes will make a plea to not only my Jewish fans, but just to whoever is listening. And hopefully people will take away this message as well to try to separate Israel from their institutions and to show themselves as if you consider what Israel is doing to be repugnant, then stress that there is that distinction between a Jewish institution that you might be a part of and how much they celebrate Israel or how much they try to fundraise for the IDF, for example, or do settler fairs, which are illegal, inside of synagogues, right? Because from my experience, there are a lot of Jewish advocacy organizations in this country and a lot of Jewish institutions in this country that simply masquerade as Jewish institutions and Jewish advocacy organizations when they're just pro-Israel advocacy organizations and institutions.

49:52The ADL is a great example of this. The Apartheid Defense League, as I like to call them, led by Jonathan Greenblatt, is very obviously not invested in combating anti-Semitism at all and is simply using anti-Semitism in this cynical way to attack critics of Israel, prominent critics of Israel that have spent decades fighting anti-Semitism and still continue to do so, myself included. And that separation, that lack of separation rather, is teaching Americans who have not been inundated with, you know, Zionist indoctrination, who haven't, you know, who don't have any association with Jews other than watching Seinfeld and thinking, oh, you know, they control the media, but they make good movies, right?

50:34Like that's the attitude of the average American about Jewish people who are some, I think the most celebrated religious minority in this country, most celebrated religious group in this country. I don't know where it is right now, but that's what the polling is consistently. And the least is, I think, Mormons, weirdly enough. But anyway, surprising. But the way that people see it is they watch heinous violence unfold. And they see the Israeli state call itself the Jewish state. And then they see Americans, American Jews and Jewish institutions say, yes, that is the Jewish state. Zionism is important to us.

51:15It is the most important thing. We are tied to Israel in this inseparable way. We do care about it. And you as an American should shut up. You as an American should be canceled. You as an American should not have a job if you speak out against Israel because you're being anti-Semitic, what lesson are we teaching Americans? We're teaching them that every Jewish person demonstrates dual loyalty, which is false. It's a trope. It's a lie. It's not true. But that's what we're teaching people. And we're also teaching people that everything that Israel does, it does for Jews. Every time we call Israel the Jewish state, that's what we're doing.

51:53That's what we're teaching regular Americans. So I try to combat those forces on a daily basis. And ironically enough, I would say this at my size, in the streamer universe especially, where most of the prominent Israel critics are Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and many other right-wing forces, they don't care about making that distinction. I do. So it blows my mind that groups like the Apartheid Defense League spend most of their time trying to deplatform me. And when you hear them too, you'll hear, I mean, some of them are just all conspiracy all the time, but like, you know, Tucker Carlson's a good example.

52:35They'll be like, he'll do like a, a very thoughtful critique of Israel and then suddenly like launch into a conspiracy where you're like, okay, now we're just, this is just, now we're into anti-Semitic territory. Now it's a Jewish conspiracy for this and that and the other thing. And it's like, they do, yeah, it's, it is a, it is a real difference. But I do think that like, look, I find as someone who has not always talked about this issue, but has a lot recently, like it feels often like a minefield as you're talking about it, because I very much like the idea that I would say anything anti-Semitic is like horrifying to me.

53:11You know, I believe anti-Semitism is very, very real. But it is quite difficult because a lot of very pro-Israel voices will say that's anti-Semitic by because of you. You've critiqued Israel. There's also a lot of stuff that Israel does or Israel advocacy groups do that objectively does look insane when you explain it. Like, like one of the things that I've talked about or one of the things I talked about early on was like, sometimes you hear something that Israel has done and you're like, did they did they do that? Are you being anti-Semitic right now? And then you find out you're like, oh, my God, they did do that.

53:49That is insane. so like there is that element of it too where on the one hand a lot of defenders of israel will call like anything that you say blood libel like oh israel kills children that's blood libel how dare you say that it's like well i've seen it like i've seen the children the numbers are there and i've also personally seen uh some of the children that have been murdered uh with these bombing campaigns right so that already undermines the the impact of of blood libel as a as a way to have a conversation about blood libel to begin with, which is a real historic wrong, a real historic way to associate people of the Jewish faith with whatever heinous acts that led to the pogroms, right?

54:31So you're undermining anti-Semitism every time you do that, but then also simultaneously, you're teaching people that this is a good thing. This is something that you defend. This is something that you consider to be defensible. And you're doing that while you're associating with Judaism. The way I explain it, I delivered a speech at the Oxford Union a year and a half ago at this point. And the way I explained it to people, and at the time, the change in attitude in the Western world was not so calcified, right? But my positions were obviously the same. And I explained to people, look, what a lot of people don't understand with this dangerous conflation, I will give you a warning as a Muslim American who has lived in the United States of America since 2009 and has experienced Islamophobia.

55:23A lot of people think that Israel is still, you know, an acceptable country. It's no longer an acceptable country. It will become a pariah state if it hasn't already. It has always been a pariah state for the third world. But now in the first world, in the developed nations, people are beginning to recognize Israel as a pariah state. The previous ways of defending Israel by saying it's the most moral nation on earth, it's the only democracy in the region, no matter how racialized those tropes were and how silly they were, it worked because most people were oblivious to what Israel does. Now they know.

55:56So this would be equivalent to me running around and saying, you can't criticize Saudi Arabia because the Mecca is there, you know, Medina is there, the Kaaba is in Saudi Arabia. You cannot criticize Saudi Arabia's blockade against Yemen, for example, because you're Islamophobic. This would be the equivalent of me running around as a Muslim saying, I'm a Muslim, and our institutions, our mosques are fundraising for ISIS. And if you criticize ISIS, if you dare say anything about the Islamic State that are trying to implement a caliphate, that's true Islam. You're Islamophobic. And then the media was also defending that position.

56:34And all of our institutions were defending that position. Well, I also think it's easier now for, unfortunately, very unfortunately, for Americans to understand because we are seeing something like that happen here in the United States under Trump. But also, like, I think this will sound crazy, but I thought one of the most compelling things, maybe one of the only compelling things Joe Biden said after October 7th, right after October 7th, was that. He warned, he gave a warning to Israel, don't do what we did after 9-11. Yeah. Don't make that mistake. Now, we know what happens. And then he went and hugged Benjamin and Yow.

57:13Right, we all know what happened from there. But I think about that often because, and now all these, you know, these years later, as Trump's second term has, you know, he's charging towards, you know, an authoritarian state as well. I'm always like, how can you, like, of course, it's easy to imagine another country doing something like this because it's happening here. Yeah. No, that's my argument. Exactly. That's why it's not, it doesn't have to do with anything about the specific religion. It's what happens when people are in power and they decide to use that power to oppress other people. Like that is the, all right, let's get back to American politics before we close.

57:49I mean, I would say Israel politics is American politics. It is right now, yeah. Just like you also brought up, and not just like foreign policy. I mean, what you're talking about is correct. It's the same exact fascist forces. And sometimes it's the same exact like ethno-religious attitudes. like the ethno-religious supremacist attitudes that is, you know, the guiding principle of this growing MAGA fascist movement in this country. Stephen Miller.

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59:34we got midterms in november uh 2028 democratic primary is already beginning we had a bunch of potential candidates where it sharpens event in new york uh the dnc winter meeting kicked off thursday how do you see your role in electoral politics over the next few years i see myself as a megaphone for the people. And if, I mean, I have, I'm fortunate enough to have a fairly large platform at this point. So the way I look at it is, look, I have a lot of door knockers, phone bankers, fundraisers in my community, community, you know, community leaders and people that are, you know, running for office as well, running for office themselves, labor organizers, and the media as well.

1:00:17So like, these are some of the most tuned in people, the politics they're tuning in the politics when it's boring they're tuning in the politics before the primaries right and they're certainly tuning in in the general um you want to talk to these people because even if size-wise they might not be the biggest force like i don't have the same audience as like joe rogan for example um their impact is outsized so you want to be able to convince these people that you're their guy and a lot of politicians have have recognized that And it's really interesting because like these past two weeks, they've been writing all of these different things about how dangerous it is.

1:00:55And Democrats shouldn't associate with me. And then they're like, associate with us the third way instead. And it's like no one fucking cares about that. But I have fielded hundreds of requests at this point leading up to the primaries. After those articles came out, it probably 10xed. It's insane. People are just like, yeah, I don't care. Yeah, please, please, let's do a meetup. Yes, yes. And places that you would find very interesting as well. It's not just like, you know, radical lefty candidates either. There are a lot of people who are like, this is clearly a massive audience. You have the capacity to communicate with, you know, young men especially.

1:01:37And we want to be able to reach out to those people that we've lost. So, you know, that's it. But before this last media cycle for you, there was one, I think, in March. You said you wouldn't vote for Gavin Newsom against J.D. Vance in 2028. Yeah, yeah. And you vote third party. I mean, I don't even think that's going to be a problem. Well, but like a lot of people, including people who share a lot of your critiques of the Democratic Party, hear that and think like this is the problem. You know, when the stakes are concrete, like a Vance presidency, another four years of what we're living through, you know the people who say they're building a movement would you know like rather preserve their own power than you know do what winning requires and you know hold your nose and vote for what you believe would be the lesser of two evils like how do you respond to that i realize that you are a california voter but you have fans and and audience i'm sure in a lot of the swing states yeah like what do you tell people who follow you who respect you who happen to live in swing states as we head to 2026 and 2028?

1:02:37I want the Democratic Party to treat me like a never Trumper. I want the Democratic Party to treat me like a triple Trump voter. Okay, because it turns out that's all they're tuned into. So if that if what it takes for the Democrats to turn around and be like, wait a minute, we're losing this guy, we have to win him over again, or whatever, instead of just like taking my vote for granted, as they've done so over and over again for the left flank. Then, you know, I'm going to say things that may or may not end up being true, but it doesn't matter. We're so far out from the election anyway that it's like, I'm just saying, look, now is your opportunity to find a good candidate instead.

1:03:11But you see, but you see as we head into these that like after what we've lived through these last years, the stakes and the stark difference between even a Democrat who you and I might find not up to par, to say the least, versus Vance or whoever the fuck they put up. Of course. I mean, I hate Republicans. I oppose them. I say that all the time. I think that the Republicans are far more damaging. The biggest terrorist, the biggest domestic terrorist in this country, the biggest terrorist internationally is the Republican Party. And not only that, but it's just like, I want to fight against the growing fascist movement in this country.

1:03:52My frustration with the Democrats is their conciliatory attitude towards that and their lack of investment in this struggle. This this idea that, you know, on the one hand, you say Donald Trump's a dangerous force. I see that. I recognize that. But then you turn around and you take on his anti-immigrant narratives and anti-immigrant messaging from the 2020 election that you won and decide you're going to be the sincere candidate that ends up, you know, dealing with the growth of migration in this country. it's a failure if you were serious about being an anti-fascist you're serious about combating these forces you would take it more seriously you would do everything you can you wouldn't try to win by your own coalition that you want to build and like you know parade Liz Cheney around and and act as though you're going to win with like never trumpers or whatever you would do everything in your power to talk to people on uh on your left flank and we're seeing that now better than ever before with people like platner in maine right that like you can actually be an outspoken leftist that says i'm for pro i'm i'm pro medicare for all i'm an anti-zionist i'm anti-genocide you have candidates like that winning uh at least you know inshallah winning in places like maine and unseating republicans even you got dan osborne like not every single one of these guys is the same yeah right they don't always have we're gonna like all their positions are gonna line up yeah they're not they're not uniform but there is this broad left flank left populism bernicrat attitude that i'm seeing from a lot of candidates and and i think the centrist forces are very afraid of the movement that is building the movement that is brewing on that side because um they don't want a thousand zorans i want a thousand zorans to bloom okay let a thousand zorans blossom all around the country that's what i want he's very popular right now yeah do you want to say something nice about john ossoff or do you like him enough that you realize saying something nice about him would be bad well i don't think see that's the thing i don't i i don't believe that because if i believe that i would be a burden to campaigns i wouldn't go out and campaign with people that i like yeah um they they ironically enough did think that way back in the day when i first actually work with the Ossoff campaign and then the Raphael Warnock campaign in the first election that they did, right?

1:06:17And I worked with them privately. I set it up for them to do something on Twitch, but I did it on background because they were worried that like associating with me even back then would be bad for Georgia. I don't agree. I don't think that's the case at all. You look at all these places, you look at like some of the most conservative places in like Virginia or West Virginia even, and you pull them on things like, what do you think about the DSA? What do you think about Israel. And it's like, they're a lot closer to me than they are to an establishment Democrat. Right. And the same goes for Medicare for all.

1:06:47So like the idea that that we have not also polarized in the exact same way that the Republicans have is very silly. We're in a very different political environment now, and we're in a very different media environment right now. And it's actually mainstream media that's trying to play catch up. It's actually the establishment Democrats that are trying to play catch up to where the public is actually at. Most people don't care about this stuff. They don't. They see the clips and they go, OK, that sounds kind of crazy. Let me go check this guy out. And then they and then they hear what I have to say, because I'm I'm not a political operative that doesn't have his own platform.

1:07:26I'm a political operative with his own platform that is competitive with these other platforms that are speaking over me. So I'm endlessly accessible. You can just come and see what I have to say, see what I'm about, and very quickly realize that perhaps the way that I'm being presented in mainstream news is maybe not the right way. Maybe it's a little bit of a manufactured outrage campaign. And one example I'll use is this. I was monitoring the situation on my flight back from Michigan to Los Angeles, which apparently some agent of Laura Loomer took a photo of me sleeping, which was so crazy.

1:08:08But while I was monitoring the situation, I was listening to Dana Bash talk about what's going on in Iran. Then all of a sudden, Dana Bash starts talking about me. And it had my choice quotes up there, you know, like the most insincere one is me actually defending or claiming that I'm, you know, defending rapes or whatever, like denying sexual I didn't bring that one up because I do think that was the most out of context one yeah that was so clearly you weren't saying rape doesn't matter you were saying yeah it doesn't justify genocide the rape doesn't yeah it doesn't change the moral calculus on either side I think which is I'm just like it's you know Hamas did something fucking catastrophic and and committed horrible atrocities whether whether rape or not exists like that it was still a really good point Israel had a literal pro-rape January 6th style riot after six of the uh Israeli occupation forces concentration camp guards as today tamon were were prosecuted uh for raping palestinian prisoners and they and they released them well and then it was like benjamin daniel apologized for even attempting to prosecute them and now one of them is like a famous television guy i still don't think that i think that's the most heinous thing that's the most insane thing i've ever heard right back to my universal principles but i still don't think israel should be wiped out sexual violence horrific no matter who commits it yeah but but i don't think israel should should receive what uh israel has done to the palestinians in in uh you know in retaliation to that that's my uh assessment that's my uh attitude but uh wait what was i saying oh so i saw danabash so there's a guy sitting next to me and he's looking at the tv he's also watching you CNN he turns around it's like that's it's like is that you and I was like haha no and then I was like yeah it's me and the quote that was on screen was America deserve 9-11 so I'm going through the motions of like this guy is is sitting next to a big bearded dude on a plane who is on a plane associated with 9-11?

1:10:13Like, and I was just like, oh, that's, you know, they're taking me out of context. Like, you know what it is? And he was like, he turns to me, he's a liberal guy. He's flying back to LA. He goes, I fucking hate CNN. He's like, I hate Dana Bash. So he automatically was on my side because of the resentment that he has towards CNN. That is, maybe that's a good place to leave it. That's a good place to leave it. And look, we love Dana Bash here. Maybe we'll get her here and we can talk about this too. Hassan, thanks for coming on. You'll have to come out again next time you're causing a lot of trouble.

1:10:46Yeah, I mean, that's probably going to keep happening, it seems. Well, we'll see you. Thank you for having me. Of course.

1:10:56Thanks to Hassan Piker for coming on the show. Tommy Lovett and I will be back in your feeds on Tuesday with a new episode.

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