Hasan Piker Has Thoughts on the Hasan Piker Discourse

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The soundstop by the studio to talk about his move into electoral politics. You recently hit the campaign trail to stump for Abdul El Sayed in Michigan. And to talk about, well, everything you've seen in the news about him lately. We ended up talking about the many statements he's made that have sparked a discussion inside the Democratic Party about whether candidates should associate themselves with him in his audience. We also debated his views on Israel and Hamas. How he thinks about the words he chooses in his theory of political organizing.

“It's a conversation you need to hear for yourself, so we will get right into it. But before we do, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already.”

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So head to crooked.com/friends and subscribe. All right. Here's the soundpiker. [Music] The sound welcome back to the show. It's good to be back. You've somehow become the most argued about figure in Democratic politics over the last few weeks. So I'd like to have a conversation about why that is that is hopefully more nuanced and useful than much of the discourse.

Yeah. I mean, I goes show how serious we are as a movement, as an opposition party that this is the primary focus central to the discourse. Yeah. Just a quick recap to set the table for people who, um, lucky for them, maybe haven't been following along.

Few weeks ago, a third-way central Democratic thing tank published a Wall Street Journal of Apped calling on Democrats to stop engaging with you.

They describe you as anti-American, anti-wester and anti-Semitic. Their evidence is a long list of things you've said, which we'll get into. Also, specifically single out a few Democrats, us, for inviting you to Crooked Con last year, Rokana and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul-Elsaid. Also, a former Crooked House to a few of us have donated to and who you campaigned with this week, which fueled even more controversy. Now, you and I scheduled this conversation weeks ago. I'm sure some people have had enough Hassanpecker discourse, but I do think it's an important conversation to have because, like, you know, even though you and I have different politics, we've actually debated our disagreements on this show.

“I think there's value in doing that in person in a format that's not mediated by algorithms or a five-minute cable hit.”

So with all that said, here's why I want to start. I think the rally is with Abdul this week, with the first time you've been a featured speaker at a candidate's actual campaign event.

And I wonder how you self-proclaimed Marxist anti-imperialist decided to be a campaign surrogate for a Democratic candidate, even when it's progressive as Abdul. What was your thinking there, and like, what has made you get more involved in Democratic politics?

for me, the difference between Abdul coming on my stream, which I've done many times prior to this, and me, like going to Dearborn and us working out together in eating kebabs, is probably more significant than me going on a rally and talking for five minutes in front of a live audience. So I never thought of that as like this major new step. I guess it is, because the DC bubble was like freaking out about it, where they're like, how dare you do this? This is the most devastating thing anyone's ever done.

“And, and I like the guy, there is this the reason why I did this, like I trust him, I think he has a lot of great policy opinions.”

I think he is much more responsive to the needs of the base than some of the other Democrats that I've been very upset with for many, many years, and I think he's exactly the type of guy that the party needs to have more of. The role has been very clear since Zauron, when when we linked up during the primary, it was a very crowded field, and he was able to like cut through that noise and become a beloved mayor of New York now. I want to get people into positions of power that I align with politically, even if we don't 100% agree, I even have disagreements with Zauron from time to time. I'll text him some stuff. I'll be like, oh, you know, cut this out. What are you doing?

“At the end of the day, I understand that politics is in some ways the art of the possible, right? Like, and I see that. I'm not. My expectation is never going to be someone coming out and advocating to seize the means of production.”

I've never noticed many to my left, which does exist for those of you out there. There are people who are further to the left than me who will say elections, bourgeois elections are unnecessary and all you're doing is taking away revolutionary potential and feeding it back into the Democratic party or shepherd for the the Democrats and therefore a reactionary, a social fascist even. All of that stuff is going to break the brains of your audience. I'm not even, I shouldn't even get into that. Yeah, I think if someone wants to improve the material conditions of the working class in this country, if someone says no to unnecessary, like endless wars and advocates to to bring our productive output back home to work on ourselves.

In some ways, not a dissimilar message to the lie that Maga told about isolationism and, you know, no new wars and being the peace president. If someone actually identifies with that and wants to advance that agenda, I'm going to be there for them just to broaden it out because I do think it's useful for people who don't know and are now wondering like, what's he up to? What does he want? Like, what is your theory of political change?

“How do we get from where we are now? What is the mechanism to get from where we are now to the world that you want to live in? Oh, great question.”

So, I am a firm believer that one of the biggest issues in the United States of America, which is the heart of empire, one of the most capitalist countries, a proto-capitalist country, before capitalism and industrial revolution even happen, is the idea that most people do not have class consciousness. Most Americans don't understand that they're working class and that there are people who generate most of their revenue, most of their net worth off of capital accumulation, but the overwhelming majority of Americans in the 99% is burning likes to call it.

They don't do that. They get a regular wage. They're not business owners or even if they're business owners, they oftentimes operate their own business, so like the overwhelming amount of money that they're making, they're putting in their pocket is coming from their own labor.

And they don't identify what that at all. They're hopped up on American exceptionalism, American individualism.

So my goal is to instill class consciousness in people and help them identify what would be more like, helped them identify who is actually causing harm to them. And in my assessment, it's the billionaires and the corporations who actually control the levers of power in this country, and not the vulnerable populations, the marginalized communities, that the Republicans very effectively take people's frustrations and redirect them towards. Right? It's not a trans person or a Guatemalan migrant that's like raising your rent. It's your landlord. It's not a trans person or a Mexican undocumented immigrant that's working in a field that is responsible for why your grocery prices are going up.

That's that's that's greed-flation and corporate consolidation that's at the heart of that issue. And when you think about your own show and your own audience, like, what do you think actually changes people's minds? Like, what has worked for you?

And we were having this back and forth when I said exactly this thing about, you know, it's not a trans person that's like hurting you at all, but the, you know, we're that the Republicans are constantly angling it in that direction and never really talking about big corporations and, you know, big pharma and all of these capital owners, all these very powerful people that basically run the show in an almost bipartisan manner.

And, and when I have that conversation with a lot of regular Americans, ordinary Americans that haven't put a lot of thought into it, they go away to me that does kind of make sense.

“Yeah. I feel like that's not only, do I think that that's true, but I also feel like it's a very effective way to try to unlock people's class consciousness.”

And sort of built coalitions people who are, who are different. You have over 3 million followers on Twitch, 1.75 million on YouTube. I saw that you've done something like 20,000 hours of live streaming.

Yeah. That is all off the cuff political takes and responding to viewers in real time, which I imagine must be like constantly fighting with people in your mentions.

So I'm not surprised that you've said some stupid and offensive things. I'm even less surprised that you've said stuff that sounds even worse when it's clipped out of context. Here's what I'm wondering, as you've grown your audience and influence and as you've gotten more directly involved in electoral politics, do you feel a responsibility to choose your words more carefully or at least in ways that are less likely to be misconstrued?

“No. So yes, because obviously I don't want to cause any harm to any of the candidates that I'm associating with or this movement that I am obviously a part of.”

What I like to call the left-length candidates or the Bernie Crats, people who are more responsive to the needs of the working class folks all around the country, I don't want to ever be a burden to them because being associated with them is not beneficial for me. The way that DC media perceives this situation is like, oh my god, he went on, he went out to stump for Abdul, all of a sudden he's like a legitimate political force. I'm like, I've been doing that already. I was infinitely more effective sitting at home and just talking shit, then I am sitting in front of a live audience with like 600 people, although that's still good, and I enjoy it personally, and I do that for candidates that I trust candidates that I want to endorse and fight for, but I'm already fundraising for a lot of these folks, small dollar donations from all around the country, keep flooding in to all the campaigns that I work with.

“But yeah, I am cognizant of that. On the other hand, one thing that I'm thinking about is, well, this medium lends itself so perfectly to being clipped out of context, and I think we are now in a media environment where that doesn't matter as much.”

Donald Trump's the president, right? He is the president. It's not just his words that are messed up, that galvanized some of the most reactionary forces in this country, and normalized some of the most heinous, most toxic, repulsive types of politics. He ran on, he campaigned on saying Haitians are eating cats and dogs. That's unbelievable. That's white supremacy through and through, and he won. So on the one hand, I think that we are now existing in a very different media environment to the one that like MS now, New York Times, and CNN want to exist in.

I think that kind of stuff is over. Like your vulgar person, as an independent content creator, I think most people don't care about that. Most people care about who you are and what your values are and what you represent.

And I've been able to withstand these kinds of smear campaigns on even the independent side far before I ever drew the eye of RNC research department.

And as a matter of fact, they're using a lot of the same clips that I've had to deal with that are circulating on the internet anyway. So it's not. It doesn't bother me that much. It doesn't do anything to my audience. My audience knows what I stand for. They're listening to me for eight hours a day. They know exactly what my values are. It might stop some people or maybe cause them to second guess whether or not they want to be charitable to what I have to say. And that's a problem. But at the end of the day, most people that see that stuff go wait a minute.

I have the capacity to I have free will. I can have the capacity to think critically what's going on here. Why is the Republican Party saying this claiming that this guy is racist or claiming that this guy is a misogynist. When I know what the Republican Party stands for, let me go check him out. And I think a lot of people do that. And then they check me out. And then they realize, oh, they were just lying like that's that simple.

And I just read the coverage of the last couple of weeks. I would be like, oh, yeah, he's a fucking asshole. Yeah, to be fair. I am. I am. But you're an asshole. And I think in different ways than you are being portrayed. Yeah, I'm an asshole to bullies. Like I bully bullies. I'm an asshole to reactionaries across the board. I'm an asshole to Nazis. It doesn't matter to me. If you're right wing, if you're a Nazi, if you're a reactionary, I'm not going to be nice to you. And I don't think we should be nice to them. They're not nice to us. They're not nice to random uninitiated people. They're not nice to entire swath of the population. So yeah, if that's your ideology, that's your worldview.

I find that to be very damaging. I find that to be very toxic. I find that to be violent and dangerous.

I'm going to fight back. I'm going to use some mean words every now and then. Yeah. Well, and it's less the mean words, right? Because like, at least for me, because I was looking through the, the hit list, which I want to get into here, or at least some of them.

“Because there's some where I'm like that was clearly taken out of context, whatever. There's somewhere, I think like the underlying point is still worth debating or talking about.”

So the one I've seen just about everywhere is I think this is the most common one is your comment that America deserved 9/11. Yeah, which you watched back in 2019 by calling it an appropriate, a poor attempt at satire and said that you meant America the government not Americans is people. But do you still think that America is a country deserved 9/11? Because saying America or any country deserved to be attacked to me is different than saying you understand why they were attacked and what actions might have contributed to that attack.

Like I get I get the blowback argument, but that is different than deserved deserved is like a more of a normative kind of. And that was me responding to Daniel Crenshaw, ironically enough, on the Jorogan experience where he was making this ridiculous argument that like, you know, we have to go out and fight these people all the time, because they hate us, because they ain't us. And I was like, that's insane, that's not the reason, like, and this was actually echoed by Robert Cagan, one of the godfathers of neoconservatism just last week where he came out and was like, yeah, actually we have been messing around in the Middle East.

For, you know, upwards of 60 years and that's precisely the reason why 9/11 happened and that's precisely the reason why these guys say death to America and around for example.

So like that was exactly the same sentiment that I've addressed a million times over.

But of course, in this moment it was you know, he did response and an impassioned response and and people will consistently use that against me over and over again.

“And some people hear that and they think I understand exactly what's going on here, some people hear that and go, how heinous.”

Oh, oh, my stars and garters, I am clutching my pearls, I don't even want to learn what this is about, I don't want to understand what he's saying. His name is a son, he must be Al Qaeda. I mean, and that's fine, you also can like bring it to the present because like I have a very real fear right now because of what Donald Trump has done and Iran. He has increased the risk of terror attacks on Americans abroad and maybe even here and God forbid one of those happens. We will know that it could be a result of or at least Donald Trump will have contributed to that.

100% be a direct byproduct of everything that we've done. It's like impossible not to recognize it at this point. Yeah, and it's very easy at that point for me to say, oh, now we know what led to that versus, yeah, you know what, we deserved it. Like I wouldn't say that. Yeah, but I would say like I understand.

Civilians don't deserve it. I mean, I'm anti civilian murder. I'm anti civilian dead.

That's like one of my, one of my first principles is that I'm anti, I'm anti war for that reason because I don't want civilians to die.

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“I want to say in the theme of violence just for a minute because I think it connects to another”

common of yours that's been circulating this one from January. Hamas is a thousand times better than a fascist settler colonial apartheid state. I stand by that.

Also, I will say this is the one that bothered me most when I first heard.

And I remember having a reaction to it when I first saw it in January. Because I think even if you believe what happening Gaza is genocide and what's happening in the West Bank is apartheid. Those are different claims from Hamas as a thousand times better. Hamas is an organization that has massacred, raped, kidnapped civilians on October 7th.

They've also been catastrophic for Palestinians. By almost every measure, they governance, corruption. They made choices they knew would result in mass civilian death of their own people. So my question is when you say Hamas is a thousand times better. Do you actually mean that?

Or is that a rhetorical move or like a solidarity signal? Like what? I mean it's all of the above. I do mean it.

“I think it's a rhetorical move because it frustrates a lot of people.”

I've also said I'm a harm reduction voter. I'm a lesser evil voter. And therefore I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time. Because I'm looking at the situation as as a paramilitar organization that has like a political party as well.

That is entirely comprised, not as an alien force, but of orphan children that have had their parents killed by an apartheid state that has been dominating the lives of Palestinians for 80 years at this point. And they've done a genocide at this point as well. But like it started off with the Nakhba and has only evolved as technology has gotten better to become more heinous and Gaza is this hermetically sealed area that many people correctly

point to as the world's largest open-air prison before October 7.

So my perspective on this has always been that I think that Hamas' tactics which I oppose at times,

right, or it's like internal governance issues are secondary to this conversation because it's like placing a lot of emphasis on the Nat Turner rebellion. Or instead of talking about the much larger, much more consequential, much bigger harm that chattel slavery was to black people to like sell black people and to rape them

And I think that's a far larger systemic force that is going to be going to make the Nat Turner rebellion

look inconsequential and 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 collaborate. As the collaborators that have worked alongside the apartheid administration, they had a practice called neclicing where they would put a tire around the next of collaborators

and light it on fire was heinous practice.

And it was, of course, condemned after the fact, but none of the people that were engaged in it front recall correctly, even in the truth and reconciliation committee were actually legally charged for it. Because there's this understanding when we look back at some of the more heinous things that resistance groups have done. And militancies have done. We matched 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 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 7 to Lebanon right now as we speak. Just take it from the Palestinian perspective.

“Don't you think Hamas's decision to attack on October 7 and to massacre civilians on October 7 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 7? 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, 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 mass slaughter or civilian targeting, they just have less success than resistance movements that are nonviolent. I mean, it's obviously in history. We've had a revolution here. I get it.

I get our revolution. 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 the worst thing is going to happen.”

But I think it might have been Kwame Tori who said it, 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. I 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. The maintenance requires you to constantly be a military force that has ever present,

that is dominating, and virtually humiliating, and subjugating millions of people.

So 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 the cop.

“The automatic suspicion is, well, the police are actually maintaining law in order, so it must be a criminal, right?”

That might not always be the case. So I like to look at this stuff with 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? And 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 Alexa Flood was actually conducted, not only by Hamas, but Palestinian Islamic Jihad's own militant forces, PFLP, DFLP, and numerous other, even including Fata 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.

Are there disagreements within the Palestinian coalition against Hamas's governance? Absolutely. No people are a monolith.

“But the only thing that every single Palestinian, with the exception of those who work for the Atlantic, Councilor, whatever, that are there to just, you know,”

do regime propaganda, do Israel propaganda, but 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.

Well, always say, the number one thing that we want is the end to the occupation, is the end to the apartheid.

The 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 -- that Palestinians want, and to the occupation, dignity, self-determination. Yeah. For people who are not as familiar with the issue as you, and 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 7,

and then I heard a message that Hamas is better than Israel, I would be less receptive to the person delivering that message. And I would, someone saying, "Look what Israel has done, and what the Palestinian people really want." Aside from this organization that is serving them poorly, is most Palestinians just want dignity and they want. Yeah. And 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 a genocide, where people simply did not want to hear that message at all.

But I know, and I knew back then, that as long as I say the truth, that one, his true will vindicate me.

And too, 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 sheltering people from that perspective.

“Do I obviously manage in a much longer format, 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, that I was always better in Israel, cuts across and that cuts across that narrative in a way that I think even liberals have to think about. Because someone who is immediately reactive to that kind of sentiment that goes "Wait a minute," but liberal. 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? I think, okay, he's saying, you know, Hamas killed 1200 people. You know, a third of them were soldiers, a third of them were, you know, military people who were like, you know, active duty in the military. And then civilians as well, Israel has done that, you know, a thousandfold to the Palestinians. So I think like even in the most reductive ways, even in the most reductive ways to try to comprehend what I'm saying.

There are people can understand that. I think people are not stupid. I will tell you in a while, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I landed with me because I was like, it wasn't like, oh wait, why did he say that? Israel's some great. Israel has committed just horrific atrocity.

Like, you know, I have moved so far on this. But I'm like, Hamas is fucking, 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, kids and people. And a lot of like, very, these are like, leftist peace nicks.

Israeli is 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 politics to have like, universal principles, right?”

It's just like, if a violence, violence is always wrong, civilian violence is always wrong.

Targeting children and women always wrong, no matter which side does it. And I do think that it's important, not just from a moral perspective, but from like a building, a political coalition. A political coalition perspective to say, if I think one thing is wrong, one action is wrong on this side,

Yeah. Even if there is an obvious power imbalance, even if there is a history.

But we don't always do that as my point.

Oh, I know. We don't, we don't do that when the dust is settled. We don't do that when the historic forces have played itself out and we look back at it. And I, I don't see a reason not to apply that same interpretation because I see both, 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. So 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 the rubble,

is something that we've seen so many times on the TV, whether it be the serious war, whether it be rock, Afghanistan. So we automatically collateralize those, those, the lives of those Palestinians. So that's part of the reason why those images are, I think, the most, like that is what personally has moved me. Yeah, the most is seeing those images. Like, I remember, like, in, you know, post talks over seventh and we talked about it a lot here and the student protest movement and all the craziness over that.

“And I remember thinking, like, it was, there's that there was that Columbia student who, I think was eventually suspended or expelled or whatever for saying,”

like, like, you're, like, getting killed more Zionists and all that. Yeah. 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 do 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 movement is my 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 to say unhing things that I totally disagree with. Yeah. At the end of the day, this is exactly what happened with Black Lives Matter as well, where, you know, there'd be, like, uh, there'd be someone that says, like, yeah, I'm, like, bacon and then the media would laser in on that to disparage the entire movement.

So 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, uh, you know, key, uh, key offenders that have said something that I consider to be heinous as well, right?”

Um, and I don't spend a lot of time or, uh, 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've ever seen. They had messaging discipline. They had all of the right things. They had protests 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. And they still got brutalized. UCLA is the one I went to.

Um, I couldn't believe it. Like, uh, these, these, uh, you know, pro israel groups. Uh, where they, they set up these, uh, massive, uh, they set up as like massive auditorium or not auditorium. I don't know what it's called, but like a projector where they, uh, were blasting, uh, October 7 footage and, and calling these, uh, student encampment, uh, uh, student protestors 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 sizing it or oftentimes, siding with the pro israel, uh, with the pro israel people. So like, for me, again, it's, uh, 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, who's 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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“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. I think it's like a definitional issue for two years. Yeah, for sure. But I do think that like there's probably a lot of, I think a lot of probably secular liberals in the even secular Jews in this country who's think of Zionism as they do.

Like I like the idea of a Jewish homeland and do not think ethno state, 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.

And if democracy and equal rights come second, then so be it. Yeah. Well, that is what has happened.

“That is, which is defacto, that's what we have right now.”

In fact, what we have right now and it was something that we were always going to head in the direction of, because I mean even Stalin was a big advocate of Israel initially. I mean, they were the ones who, the traffic weapons in 1947 that was you, there were used on Palestinian villages by way of Czech Slovakia, right? The illegally going through the blockade. There was this idea that like initially labor Zionism and, you know, Bangoran was a socialist, right? Like this was going to be like almost like a Marxist project.

But, 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 Deary Yassin and the violence that the early Zionist brigades were engaging in Haganah Irguin. 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. And 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 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, you know, Israeli historian, like Elon Pope, Avi Schleim, or people who have lived through this process. Many of which are Jews who have lived through this process and could not comprehend it. One of the first people that I interviewed after October 7 was Dr. Ofer Kassif. He is the only Jewish anti Zionist in the Kinesi. There's a Palestinian citizen of Israel who's also an anti Zionist in the Kinesi.

Like two people, basically. Very it's a lone voice, but they exist, right? I care about the perspective of people like that as well. So I so I develop a better understanding of like 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 in a better change towards a better future towards a better trajectory. Because 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 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, there's also ethno nationalism. Israel has like laws that have put this into place, but like there's de facto ethno nationalism in many different countries around the world.

Again, that's the 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. You've said you abhor anti-Semitism, you've drawn a distinction between being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

“Yeah, I take that face value. Here's the harder question, like, we're exactly do draw the line because I think I think most serious people agree that anti-Semitism 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 alter orthodox Jews in bread,

comparing liberal Zionist, liberal Nazis, the pig dogs, comments.

I didn't even know that was like a thing. Did you know that it was like, yeah, I don't, because even Jake Tapper, when he brought it up, he's like, I don't know what this is. It was like clearly reading a quote from in front of him. He's like, the 80s. Well, I know I went through it and I'm like, I've seen it and there's like, well, it's one of those things.

“I guess the larger question is like, how do you think about, is you're talking about drawing the line?”

Yeah, 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 with the project, but I really don't want anyone to take it as anti-Semitic. Yeah, not just because it hurts your feelings, but because you're trying to, you're trying to build a political movement. Yeah, well, it's not just because I want to build a political movement, it's because I also genuinely rapport anti-Semitism. So, it's 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, it's undeniable.

As it historically always has, whenever Israel does these ceases the, 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. We've definitely seen a great deal of that, right? So, what I try to do is stress the importance and showcase that this, this attitude is not monolithic inside of the American Jewry.

The reason why I think it's very important, even though Muslim guys, so most people when they hear me say that, they don't give a shit, right? Because they're like, yeah, you're, you're voice-plaining, but the reason why I stress that importance is because it's true. I mean, there's a, there's a funny saying is 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 with Israel as well.

Exactly, no, I mean, well, Israel's a little bit different because like at a certain point there is an overwhelming force of people who are on board there. It's a different perspective. Yeah, so what I, what I show always the people is that there's a difference between a lot of Jewish institutions and how Jews actually feel. Sometimes will make a plea to not only mind Jewish fans, but just 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, as if you have, if you consider what Israel's doing to be repugnant, then stress that there is that distinction between

“Jewish institutions that you might be a part of and how much they celebrate Israel or how much they try to fundraise for the idea. For example, or do settler fairs, which are illegal inside of synagogues, right?”

Because from what 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, the ADL is a great example of this. The apartheid defense league as I like the column, led by Jonathan Greenblatt, is very obviously not invested in combating anti-Semitism at all, and is simply using anti-Semitism in the cynical way to attack critics of Israel, prominent critics of Israel that have spent decades fighting anti-Semitism is still continuing to do so myself included.

And that separation, that lack of separation, rather, is teaching Americans who have not been inundated with Zionist indoctrination, who don't have any association with Jews other than watching Seinfeld and thinking, "Oh, they control the media, but they make good movies."

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 called 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.

It 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, that'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 like at my size, in the streamer universe, especially, where most of the prominent, 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 de-platform me. And when you hear them too, you'll hear, some of them are just all conspiracy all the time, but like, you know, a Tucker Carlson's a good example. It'll be like, he'll do like a very thoughtful critique of Israel, and then suddenly like, launching to a conspiracy, we're like, okay, now we're just, this is just now, we're into anti-Semitic territory. Now it's like a Jewish conspiracy for this and that and the other thing, and it's like, they do, yeah, it is a real difference.

But I do think that like, look, I find someone who has, 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.

“You know, I believe anti-Semitism is very, very real, but it is quite difficult because a lot of very proesitive voices will say that's anti-Semitic.”

Anti-Semitic, by because of you've critiqued. There's 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 that I talked about early on was like, sometimes you hear something that Israel is 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. That 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 bloodlible.

Like, oh, Israel kills children. That's bloodlible. 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 some of the children that have been murdered with these bombing campaigns, right? So that already undermines the impact of bloodlible as a way to, like, to have a conversation about bloodlible to begin with,

“which is a real historic wrong, a real historic way to associate people of the Jewish faith with, like, you know, whatever heinous acts that led to the pogroms, right?”

So you're undermining anti-Semitism every time you do that, but then also simultaneously, you're teaching people that, like, this is a good thing. Like, this is something that you defend. This is something you consider to be defensible. And you're doing that while you're associating with Judaism. The way I explain, I delivered a speech at 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, what 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 is experience Islamophobia. A 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's a pariah state.

Now they know. So 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 Kaba is in Saudi Arabia. You cannot criticize Saudi Arabia's blockade against Yemen, for example, because you're a Islamophobic. This would be the equivalent of me running around as a Muslim, saying, I'm a Muslim, and our institutions are 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 a Islamophobic. And then the media was also defending that position, and 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, yeah, this will sound crazy, but I thought the most compelling things, maybe one of the only compelling things Joe Biden said after October 7th, right after October 7th was... Haba was that, yeah, right, yeah, 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 right now. We know what happens right now. We all know what happened from there. But I think about that often, because, and now, all these years later, as Trump has, from second term, has, you know, he's charging towards a, you know, authoritarian state as well.

Yeah, 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, that's why it's, 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. Yeah, that is. All right, let's get back to American politics before we close. I mean, I would say Israel politics is a mayor. It is right now. It's 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 the same exact, like, ethno religious attitudes, like the ethno religious supremacist attitudes that is, is, you know, the guiding principle of this growing maga fascist movement is country. Steven Miller. [MUSIC] Parts of America is brought to you by rock and money. I realize that because you can, in some of the streaming apps, you can have other streaming apps inside of the streaming apps.

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Join at [email protected]/crucket. That's [email protected]/crucket. [email protected]/crucket. We got midterms in November, 2028 Democratic primaries are already beginning. They had a bunch of potential candidates for it's sharpens event in New York.

“D&C, 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 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 leaders and people that are running for office as well. Running for office themselves, labor organizers, and the media as well. So these are some of the most tuned in people, the politics. They're tuning in the politician is boring, they're tuning in the politics before the primaries, right?

And they're certainly tuning in in the general. 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 Joe Rogan for example, their impact is outsized. So you want to be able to convince these people that you're their guy.

And it's really interesting because these past two weeks they've been writing all of these different things about how dangerous it is. And 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, you know, fielded hundreds of requests at this point leading up to the primaries. After those, after those articles came out, it probably 10Xed.

It's insane. People were just like, yeah, okay, I don't care.

Yeah, please, please, let's do, let's do a million.

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 a, this is clearly a massive audience. You have the capacity to communicate with, you know, young men, especially.

And we want to be able to reach out to those people that we've lost. So, you know, so, you know, before this, this last media cycle for you,

“there was one, I think in March, you said you wouldn't vote for Gavin Newsom against JDVans in 2028 and vote third party.”

I don't, I don't even think that's going to be a problem. Well, I was like, a lot of, a lot of people, including people who share a lot of your critiques of the Democratic party, here that and think, like, this is the problem, you know, when the stakes are concrete, like, a advanced 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,

holds your nose and vote for what you believe would be a lesser of two evils. Like, how do you respond to that? I realize that you are a California voter, but you have fans and audience. I'm sure in a lot of the swing states, 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?

I want the Democratic party to treatment like a never-trumber.

I want the Democratic party to treat me like a triple tromp voter, 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. But 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 at least versus vans 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 terrorists, the biggest domestic terrorists in this country,”

the biggest terrorist internationally is the Republican Party, and not only that, but it's just like, they, like, I want to fight against the growing fascist movement in this country. My frustration with the Democrats is their conciliatory attitude towards that, and they're lack of investment in this struggle, 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 want, 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, if you were 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 list, chainy around,

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, on your left flank.

“And we're seeing that now better than ever before with people like Platner and 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-zynes, I'm anti-genicide. You have candidates like that winning, at least, you know, in Shallah, winning in places like Maine and unseeding Republicans, even you got Dan Osborn.

Like, not every single one of these guys is the same, right? They don't all, like, all their positions are going to line up. Yeah, they're not, they're not uniform. But there is this broad, left flank, left populism, Bernie Cratt 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 they don't want a thousand Zorons. I want a thousand Zorons to bloom, okay? Let a thousand Zorons blossom all around the country.

He's very popular right now. Yeah. Do you want to say something nice about John Osaf or do you like him enough

“that you realize saying something nice about him would be bad for people?”

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 in the campaigns, I wouldn't go out and campaign with people that I like.

They, they, ironically enough, did think that way back in the day when I first actually

worked with the Al-Saf campaign. And then the Raphael Warnar campaign, the first election that they did, right? And I worked with him privately. I set it up for them to do something on Twitch. But I, 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, or West Virginia, even, and you, you pull them on on things like, what do you think about the DSA? What do you think about Israel? And it's like, they're, well, a lot closer to me than they are to when establishment Democrat, right?

And, and the same goes for Medicare for all.

“So 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, okay, 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, a political operative that doesn't have his own platform.

I'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, and very quickly realize that perhaps the way that I'm being presented in mainstream news is maybe not the, 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 us sleeping, which was so crazy. But, well, 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's talking about me.

And it had my choice quotes up there, you know, like the, the most insincere one is me actually defending, or claiming that I'm, you know, defending rapes or whatever, like denying situations. I didn't bring that one up because I do think that that was the most out of context.

Yeah, that was so amazing.

That was something 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. Which is, I'm just like, it's, you know,

Hamas did something fucking catastrophic and committed horrible atrocities. You're probably, whether rape or not existed like that, it was still a lot of really good point. Israel had a literal pro rape January six style riot. After six of the Israeli occupation forces, concentration camp guards as today came on were, were prosecuted for raping Palestinian prisoners.

And they, and they released them. Well, and then it was like Benjamin Danielle apologised 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? In the back to my universal principle. But I still don't think Israel should be sexual violence. Horrific, no matter who commits it. Yeah.

But I don't think Israel should receive what Israel has done to the Palestinians in, you know, in retaliation to that. That's my assessment. That's my attitude. But wait, we'll just say that. Oh, sorry, sorry.

Anyway, so there's a guy sitting next to me. And he's looking at the TV. He's also watching CNN. He turns around. It's like, that's like, is that you?

And I was like, ha ha, no. And then I was like, yeah, it's me. And the quote that was on screen was America deserved 9/11. So I'm going through the motions of like this guy is sitting next to a big bearded dude. On a plane, associated with 9/11.

And I was just like, oh, that's, you know, they're taking me out of context. You know what it is? And he was like, he turns to me. I'm just a liberal guy. He's flying back to LA.

He was 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. And look, we love Dana Bash here.

Or 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.

I'd be, that's probably going to keep happening.

It seems so. Well, we'll see you. Thank you for having me. Of course.

Thanks to Hassan Piker for coming on the show.

Tommy Love It and I will be back in your feeds on Tuesday with a new episode.

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