Tangent
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., made similar comments about the criticism over El-Sayed’s ties to Piker, telling Politico in an interview released Monday, “like every other podcaster in the world, he says dumb things that people should reject.” Sanders characterized the ongoing backlash against El-Sayed over Piker’s comments as a GOP attack line: “Apparently it works when you and others talk about Mr. Piker,” he told the Politico reporter, urging El-Sayed to “stay on the issues that impact working families in Michigan.” Sanders and El-Sayed have not joined a wave of other Democrats—including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Michigan’s other senator, Democrat Elissa Slotkin—in condemning Piker’s comments earlier this month that critics said suggested pro-Israel rhetoric could be blamed for antisemitic violence. Sanders, acknowledging the ideological divide in the Democratic Party amid a wave of progressive wins this primary season, also told Politico he believes some Democrats don’t want El-Sayed to win. “I think there are a few who would say, ‘you know what? It’s not worth it.’” He said “a small number” of party leaders and the “donor class” view the progressive movement as “a threat to oligarchy” and a “threat to American foreign policy and our continued support for the extremist [Benjamin] Netanyahu government in Israel.”
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Big Number
4. That’s how many percentage points El-Sayed leads GOP nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers, by in an Epic-MRA poll out Monday, though 10% of voters are undecided.
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Key Background
Piker, who has campaigned with El-Sayed and other progressives, ignited intense backlash when he said in an Aug. 21 Twitch stream 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 just against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.” He also criticized state Sen. Jeremy Moss, the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, who is Jewish, for proliferating the narrative that Jews are “singularly invested in the continuation of the Israeli apartheid” over Moss’ past statements that El-Sayed needed to strengthen ties with the Oakland County Jewish community. Amid the backlash, Piker explained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was trying to highlight the “dangerous false notion” that “all Jews are singularly invested in Israel.” Piker is a fierce critic of Israel and Zionism and often tries to make a distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. El-Sayed issued a statement last week condemning antisemitism and “any rhetoric that puts the community at risk” in the wake of Piker’s comments and said “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople,” though he did not mention Piker by name. He told Semafor later in the week he has no plans to campaign with Piker again.
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further reading
Here’s What Hasan Piker Said And Why It’s So Controversial (Forbes)