A Streamer Tells His Audience That American Jews Are Inviting Violence on Themselves — and Ten Weeks Before the Midterms the Democrat He Campaigned For, Michigan's Senate Nominee, Ends Up Apologizing for a Synagogue Attack He Called "Context"
On August 20, 2026, the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker told his audience that "if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews." Within a week at least thirteen elected Democrats — including the House Democratic leader, three sitting senators and the DNC chair — had condemned the remark. The condemnations landed hardest on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan's open Senate seat, who had campaigned with Piker after beating Rep. Haley Stevens in a primary in which AIPAC-aligned groups spent at record levels against him. Rep. Hillary Scholten, who had already broken with El-Sayed over the appearances, singled out Piker's naming of Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss — the Democratic nominee for Stevens's House seat, who is Jewish and openly gay — and called Piker "a hack who thrives on hate, shock and awe because he lacks substance." Moss answered that he would not "be lectured by a California podcaster." Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who is Jewish, said crimes against Jews for being Jews are "antisemitism plain and simple." Hakeem Jeffries called the claim dangerous and antisemitic. Rep. Josh Gottheimer went further and said anyone campaigning with Piker is "part of the problem." Sens. Cory Booker, Jacky Rosen and Jon Ossoff and Reps. Ritchie Torres, Jared Moskowitz, Brad Schneider, Greg Stanton, Jake Auchincloss and Haley Stevens also condemned the remarks. El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker without disavowing him, saying "nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople." Then, on Saturday, August 29, at the Michigan Democratic Party's nominating convention in Lansing, he went to the state party's Jewish Democratic Caucus and apologized for something older: his response to the March 2026 attack on Temple Israel, a suburban Detroit synagogue, where a man crashed a vehicle into the building and opened fire, wounding a security guard before being killed. El-Sayed had condemned the attack but added "hurt people hurt people," noting the attacker had lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike days earlier. "I made a mistake," he told the caucus. "What I was trying to do was offer context for why it happened, but it wasn't the time for context." Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish and had criticized El-Sayed for making excuses for domestic terrorism, did not attend the convention, citing antisemitic harassment directed at her.
“Even if you didn't vote for Abdul, you need to support up and down the ticket this November.”