Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. This Sunday, Hasan Piker, someone I'm sure no one has a strong opinion about. Hasan stopped by the studio to talk about his move into electoral politics. He recently hit the campaign trail to stump for Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. And to talk about, well... Everything you've seen in the news about him lately.
We ended up talking about the many statements he's made that have sparked a discussion inside the Democratic Party about whether candidates should associate themselves with him and his audience. We also debated his views on Israel and Hamas, how he thinks about the words he chooses and his theory of political organizing.
It's a conversation you need to hear for yourself, so we will get right into it. But before we do... Please consider becoming a Crooked Media subscriber if you haven't already so that you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out for our friends of the pod.
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Chapter 2: What prompted Hasan Piker's move into electoral politics?
But the overwhelming majority of Americans, and the 99%, as Bernie likes to call it, they don't do that. They get a regular wage. They're not business owners. Or even if they're business owners, they oftentimes operate their own business. So the overwhelming amount of money that they're making, that they're putting in their pocket, is coming from their own labor.
And they don't identify with that at all. They're hopped up on American exceptionalism, American individualism. So my goal is to instill class consciousness in people and help them identify what would be more like help them identify who is actually causing harm to them.
And in my assessment, it's the billionaires and the corporations who actually control the levers of power in this country and not the vulnerable populations, the marginalized communities that the Republicans very effectively take people's frustrations and redirect them towards. Right. It's not a trans person or a Guatemalan migrant that's like raising your rent. It's your landlord.
Chapter 3: How has the Democratic Party responded to Hasan Piker's influence?
It's not a trans person or or a Mexican undocumented immigrant that's working in a field that is responsible for why your your grocery prices are going up. That's, you know, that's greedflation and corporate consolidation that's at the heart of that issue.
And when you think about your own show and your own audience, like, what do you think actually changes people's minds?
Like, what has worked for you? I mean, talking to them and explaining to them exactly what I'm explaining right now, which is that...
I mean, I had this conversation with Theo Vaughn where I felt like a light switch came on in his mind when we were having this back and forth, when I said exactly this thing about it's not a trans person that's hurting you at all, but isn't it weird that the Republicans are constantly angling it in that direction and never really talking about big corporations and big pharma and all of these capital owners, all these very powerful people that basically run the show?
in an almost bipartisan manner. And when I have that conversation with a lot of regular Americans, ordinary Americans that haven't put a lot of thought into it, they go, wait a minute, that does kind of make sense.
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Chapter 4: What are Hasan Piker's views on Israel and Hamas?
I feel like that's, not only do I think that that's true, but I also feel like it's a very effective way to, try to unlock people's class consciousness.
Yeah, and sort of build coalitions of people who are different. You have over 3 million followers on Twitch, 1.75 million on YouTube. I saw that you've done something like 20,000 hours of live streaming that is all off-the-cuff political takes and responding to viewers in real time, which I imagine must be like constantly fighting with people in your mentions real time. Yes. No, exactly.
So I am not surprised that you've said some stupid and offensive things. I'm even less surprised that you've said stuff that sounds even worse when it's clipped out of context. Here's what I'm wondering.
As you've grown your audience and influence and as you've gotten more directly involved in electoral politics, do you feel a responsibility to choose your words more carefully or at least in ways that are less likely to be misconstrued?
Yes and no. So yes, because obviously I don't want to cause any harm to any of the candidates that I'm associating with or this movement that I am obviously a part of. What I like to call the left flank candidates or the Berniecrats, people who are more responsive to the needs of the uh, to the working class folks all around the country.
Um, I don't, I don't want to ever be a burden to them because, uh, being associated with them is not beneficial for me. The way that DC media, uh, perceives the situation is like, Oh my God, he went on, he went out to stump for Abdul. All of a sudden he's like a legitimate political force. I'm like, I've been doing that already.
Like I was infinitely more effective sitting at home and just talking shit, right? Than I am sitting in front of a live audience with like 600 people. Although that's still good and I enjoy it personally, but like, and I do that for candidates that I trust, candidates that I want to endorse and fight for. But I'm already fundraising for a lot of these folks, right?
Small dollar donations from all around the country keep flooding into all the campaigns that I work with. But yeah, I am cognizant of that. On the other hand, one thing that I'm thinking about is, well, this medium lends itself so perfectly to being clipped out of context. And I think we are now in a media environment where that doesn't matter as much. I mean, Donald Trump's the president, right?
Like, he is the president. It's not just his words that are messed up that galvanize some of the most reactionary forces in this country and normalize some of the most heinous, most toxic, repulsive types of politics. I mean, he ran on... He campaigned on saying Haitians are eating cats and dogs. That's unbelievable. That's white supremacy through and through. And he won.
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Chapter 5: How does Hasan Piker define his political organizing strategy?
Interesting. Interesting. Wow. And you're not going to tell the guests?
No, no. Well, just a big glass for my father and then everybody else can get what's left.
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Chapter 6: What is Hasan Piker's theory of political change?
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On Zionism, you know, being an anti-Zionist, when you say you're an anti-Zionist, are you rejecting the premise that a Jewish homeland is a legitimate project at all? Or is your anti-Zionism specifically about the policies and practices of the Israeli state as it exists today?
I think Zionism is a fascist ideology.
It truly is. And how do you, because I think part of the issue, I think this is like a definitional issue. Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously. But I do think that, like, there's probably a lot of, I think a lot of probably secular liberals and even secular Jews in this country who think of Zionism as... They do.
Like, I like the idea of a Jewish homeland and do not think ethnostate, do not think any of that other stuff. And then there's people who, you know, who very much define it as, no, it must always be a Jewish majority state. And if democracy and equal rights come second, then so be it.
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Chapter 7: How does Hasan Piker navigate media scrutiny and public perception?
Medina is there. The Kaaba is in Saudi Arabia. You cannot criticize Saudi Arabia's blockade against Yemen, for example, because you're Islamophobic. This would be the equivalent of me running around as a Muslim saying, I'm a Muslim. And our institutions, our mosques are fundraising for ISIS.
And if you criticize ISIS, if you dare say anything about the Islamic State that are trying to implement a caliphate, that's true Islam. You're Islamophobic. And then the media was also defending that position. And all of our institutions were defending that position.
Well, I also think it's easier now. for, unfortunately, very unfortunately, for Americans to understand because we are seeing something like that happen here in the United States under Trump.
But also, like, I think this will sound crazy, but I thought one of the most compelling things, maybe one of the only compelling things Joe Biden said after October 7th, right after October 7th, was... Yeah, right. Yeah, it was that. He warned, he gave a warning to Israel, don't do what we did after 9-11. Don't make that mistake. Now, We know what happens.
And then he went and hugged Benjamin.
Right, we all know what happened from there. But I think about that often because... And now, all these years later, as Trump's second term, he's charging towards an authoritarian state as well. I'm always like, how can you... Of course... It's easy to imagine another country doing something like this because it's happening here. Yeah. No, that's my argument. Exactly.
That's why it's not ā it doesn't have to do with anything about the specific religion. It's what happens when people are in power and they decide to use that power to oppress other people. Like that is the ā all right. Let's get back to American politics before we close. I mean I would say ā
liberal politics is american it is right now just like you also uh brought up and not just like foreign policy i mean what you're talking about is correct it's the same exact fascist forces and sometimes it's the same exact like ethno-religious uh attitudes like the ethno-religious supremacist attitudes that is is uh you know the the guiding principle of this uh growing mega fascist movement in this country stephen miller
Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. I realized that because you can, in some of the streaming apps, you can have other streaming apps inside of those streaming apps. And also Ari had some streaming apps. And I realized like, how many different places am I paying for? I would like the answer to be zero, frankly.
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