Prominent far-left streamer Hasan Piker asserted in a recent interview that the United States has engaged in more terrorism than Al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Piker, a known surrogate for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, stated in an interview with “The Axios Show” that the U.S. is “pound for pound” the leader in terrorism. He cited an alleged missile strike on a girls' school in Iran during the early days of the Iran war as an example of U.S. actions causing terror.
"If you’re killing 140 schoolgirls, that is an act of terror,” Piker argued, adding, “This doesn’t mean that all Americans are terrorists, but the reality of the matter is we have to create an environment of accountability to ensure things like that never happen again.”
The remarks come years after Piker made a controversial statement in 2019 suggesting America “deserved 9/11,” a comment he has since partially walked back. The September 11 attacks resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people when hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, with a fourth plane crashing in Pennsylvania.
Abdul El-Sayed moved to distance himself from Piker's comments. In a statement to Axios, El-Sayed said, “I do not agree with this statement [on al-Qaeda], nor do I give much weight to the statements made by a social media streamer. I am more concerned with the dangerous policies of Donald Trump and [Republican candidate] Mike Rogers that are raising the prices of gas, groceries and healthcare for Michiganders.”
Earlier, El-Sayed had defended his continued association with Piker, telling Fox 2 Detroit that the reason he engaged with Piker was due to his large following. “The reason I talk to Hasan isn’t because of Hasan, it’s because of the 3 million people who pay attention to what he has to say,” El-Sayed stated. “Too often the way that our politics happen is that we’re told who we cannot talk to.”