First posted on Instagram
Left-wing streamer Hasan Piker called Republicans "terrorists" during a campaign event in Minnesota on Monday night that he co-hosted with Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, in an appearance that drew swift condemnation from Republicans and Jewish groups over Piker's past remarks.
The event, hosted by state lawmaker Omar Fateh, a failed Minneapolis mayoral candidate, was the inaugural episode of Fateh's "I'm The Host Now!" series. Piker and Omar took questions from Fateh during a question-and-answer session, and the pair also appeared together in a backstage livestream on Piker's broadcast before the event.
During the session, Piker said migrants were not a national security threat, calling them neighbours and allies who were a benefit to the country, and said Republicans were terrorists for treating them as a threat. He added that any Democrat who refused to recognise that was, in his opinion, un-American.
Omar, during the same session, referred to the Republican Party as the "pedophile protection party" and said President Donald Trump lied when he claimed to have won Minnesota three times. "This defeat is going to be the fourth time!" she said, adding that Minnesota was not interested in a party she described as corrupt and interested in enriching itself.
In the backstage livestream, Piker told Omar that the media had a tendency to highlight everything they did, and Omar joked that the pair looked good on screen. "We just look really good on their screens," she said.
The appearance drew condemnation before and after the event. John Nagel, the Republican challenging Omar in the midterm election, wrote on X that Omar knew exactly who Piker was and what he had said, pointing to Piker's past remarks, including his statement that "America deserved 9/11" and that he would vote for Hamas over Israel "every single time." Nagel called the appearance "the normalization of antisemitism, support for terrorists and contempt for America," and demanded that prominent Minnesota Democrats, including Peggy Flanagan and Keith Ellison, answer whether they stood with Jewish Minnesotans or with Omar and Piker.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas said it was "appalled" by Omar's decision to share the stage with Piker, saying that elevating someone with a longstanding record of antisemitic and hateful rhetoric was a betrayal of Jewish Minnesotans and harmful to the broader public.
Minnesota's four Republican members of Congress — Tom Emmer, Pete Stauber, Michelle Fischbach and Brad Finstad — had issued a joint statement before the event citing Piker's past remarks about the September 11 attacks, Hamas and the Republican Party, and saying elected Democrats should condemn his rhetoric. Republican gubernatorial candidate Lisa Demuth said she was astonished that Democratic leaders had invited "a vile anti-American left-wing radical" to Minnesota a week before the election.
The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party distanced itself from the event, saying it was not a DFL-sanctioned event. Party Chairman Richard Carlbom said DFL candidates were focused on the affordability crisis, adding: "I condemn this individual's comments that divide us." Some DFL members of the Minnesota Legislature had signed a message urging that Piker's event be cancelled, writing: "Minnesotans reject hate!"