Far-left streamer Hasan Piker claims the US is 'pound for pound' worse than al-Qaeda on terrorism deaths

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

Hasan Piker, a self-described Marxist Twitch streamer with over 8.5 million followers, told Axios the United States has caused more terrorism "pound for pound" than the group behind the 9/11 attacks. The 35-year-old cited the February strike on a girls' school in Minab, Iran, which killed an estimated 160 people including 120 children, as his central example. Piker has been campaigning alongside Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, raising Republican fury ahead of November's midterms.

Republicans are using Piker's comments to paint Democrats as the 'radical left', pointing to his 2019 claim that 'America deserved 9/11'.

El-Sayed swiftly distanced himself from the al-Qaeda remark, saying he gives 'little weight' to a social media streamer — though he had refused to cut ties with Piker just one day earlier.

Piker later accused Axios of turning his 'nuanced answer' into clickbait, claiming he was making an accountability argument, not defending terrorism.