Abdul El-Sayed Just Threw Hasan Piker Overboard. Darlings, He Didn't Even Use His Name.
The Michigan Senate candidate distanced himself from Piker's alleged 'inviting violence' remarks. Hakeem Jeffries piled on. Jesse Watters weighed in on the afterlife. A full receipt pile.
Darlings, when your own guy can't bring himself to say your name while he's dumping you, that is not a defense. That is a toe-tag.
Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Michigan Senate candidate Hasan Piker has been vocally supporting, issued a statement distancing himself from Piker's recently surfaced comments in which the streamer allegedly warned American Jews that supporting Israel means they are "inviting violence" against themselves. Per multiple outlets including Politico, CNN, and Jewish Insider, El-Sayed's statement pointedly avoided naming Piker directly, instead declaring "nobody speaks for this campaign besides me." Bold. Cowardly. Both, actually.
What Piker allegedly said. Per VINnews and picked up across the board, a clip allegedly shows Piker suggesting that pro-Israel Jewish Americans are "making antisemitism worse" and effectively drawing violence toward themselves by tying their identity to Israel's actions. Per the Algemeiner, the backlash landed across the political aisle almost immediately.
Who else piled on. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, issued a statement saying there is "zero justification" for threats against Jews, per the Times of Israel, in remarks widely read as a response to Piker's clip. A named House Democrat called Piker a "hack who thrives on hate" and said the party "does not stand for what Hasan Piker stands for," per The Hill. Rep. Keith Self also put out a formal response, per Yahoo. The chorus is getting crowded.
What El-Sayed actually did and didn't do. Per Jewish Insider, El-Sayed's distancing statement avoided using Piker's name at all, which is the kind of move that technically checks a box while refusing to fully close the door. He did tell one outlet that "nobody speaks for this campaign besides me" and that his campaign's positions are his own. Whether that satisfies anyone is a separate question.
What we don't know. Whether Piker has directly responded to El-Sayed's distancing. Whether Jeffries' statement was coordinated with other Democratic leadership or improvised. And what exactly the full clip shows, since coverage describes the remarks but a complete, unedited version has not been independently verified here.
The sidebar nobody asked for. Jesse Watters declared on Fox News that Hasan Piker is "not getting into heaven." David Hogg told The Hill that the media's fixation on Piker is "kind of weird." And if this feels familiar, it's because El-Sayed's campaign has been tangled up in the Piker vortex since at least the Moskowitz primary, when Jared Moskowitz won while wearing the "Hasan Piker Democrat" label like a bruise.
My loves, when the guy you endorsed won't say your name in his own damage-control statement, keep receipts. This is a journey with no visible exit ramp.
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