Hasan Piker Wore a Mao Suit, Got Named by the State Department, and Threatened a Restraining Order Against Destiny, All in About 24 Hours

The suit was doing a lot of work. Darlings, when Hasan Piker took the stage at the College Democrats convention in Washington on July 18, per reporting, he was wearing what Fox News and Yahoo News described as a Mao Zedong-style jacket. He then told the room there would be "no more" moderate Democrats. The crowd, one assumes, received this.

Fox News, predictably, received it differently. By July 20, the network had published what it framed as a companion piece: a resurfaced video, allegedly from a prior stream, in which Piker reportedly vows he will never criticize Mao Zedong and describes the former Chinese leader as a "great" one. The timing. Whether the clip is clipped into oblivion or represents his full position is, per usual, not something Fox News felt compelled to litigate at length.

And if the suit was the costume, the State Department supplied the casting credit. Also on July 20, Ken Klippenstein's Substack reported that following what the government called a "political terrorism" summit, the State Department released a list naming 43 Americans and organizations. Hasan Piker was on it, alongside, per The New Republic's coverage, figures including Ilhan Omar's daughter and the DSA. The New Republic noted the list; The Guardian covered the broader State Department offensive against the U.S. left framing Cuba-adjacent networks as "front groups and fellow travelers." A journey. Being named by your own government's State Department while simultaneously being the subject of a Fox News Mao retrospective is, genuinely, a content schedule no publicist would approve.

Meanwhile J Street, for its part, apparently decided that Tuesday was the correct day to go on defense. The Forward reported that the organization publicly defended its decision to co-sponsor the College Democrats convention that featured Piker. This, you will recall, is the same co-sponsorship that John Fetterman cited last week as a reason to "re-evaluate" whether he should remain a Democrat at all. J Street defending the choice is a thing that happened. We note it. We move on.

And then, separately, a whole other fire. The Times of India reported that Piker stated on stream he may file a restraining order against fellow streamer Destiny, following what the outlet described as "controversial livestream comments." The specifics of what Destiny allegedly said are, per the reporting, the kind of thing that gets clipped and re-clipped until the original context is archaeological. Piker, allegedly, is not amused. A restraining order. Against another streamer. In the same week the federal government put your name on a list.

And if this feels familiar, it is because the last time Piker's week involved this many simultaneous fronts, he was feuding with Fox News over a dog collar, a Wisconsin congresswoman, and the definition of Zionism, more or less concurrently. The man does not do slow news cycles. We wish him strength, my loves, in this trying time of his own making, his own suit, and apparently his own legal team's calendar.

The State Department list, the Mao jacket, and a potential restraining order against Destiny: honestly, that is a pilot. Someone is already pitching it.