Far-left online streamer Hasan Piker said in an interview released Thursday that the US military has carried out more acts of terrorism than Al Qaeda, the Islamist organization responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Pound for pound, as far as the number of deaths, yes,” Piker, a prominent surrogate for Michigan Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, told “The Axios Show.” He was responding to criticism of his earlier description of the United States as “the top dog in terrorism.”
“We have caused tremendous terror all around the world,” Piker said, pointing primarily to what appeared to be an accidental missile strike on a girls’ elementary school during the opening hours of the Iran war on Feb. 28.
“If you’re killing 140 schoolgirls, that is an act of terror,” he said. “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.”
Nearly 3,000 people were deliberately killed on Sept. 11, 2001, after 19 Al Qaeda hijackers seized control of four passenger planes. Two aircraft struck the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, while another hit the Pentagon. The fourth crashed before reaching its apparent target, the US Capitol, after passengers fought back and stormed the cockpit.
Piker, 35, drew widespread condemnation in 2019 when he said the United States “deserved 9/11.” He has since only partially retracted the remark.
El-Sayed moved quickly to distance himself from Piker’s latest comments. In a statement to Axios, he said: “I do not agree with this statement, 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.”
Just one day earlier, however, El-Sayed defended his decision to maintain ties with Piker. During a candidate forum hosted by Fox 2 Detroit, he said: “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.”
“Too often the way that our politics happen is that we’re told who we cannot talk to,” El-Sayed added.
The Michigan Senate contest is critical for Democrats seeking to take control of the chamber in the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The RealClearPolitics polling average currently shows El-Sayed ahead of Rogers by 1.8 percentage points.
