Kaitlan Collins gave Abdul El-Sayed a clean opening Wednesday night. All he had to do was say the words: I don’t want Hasan Piker’s help. He wouldn’t say them.
The setup came from John Fetterman, who’d warned that Piker — the controversial left-wing streamer who’s been out campaigning for El-Sayed in Michigan — could become a real headache for Democrats come November. Fetterman didn’t mince it. “I can’t come together with someone if you are willing to embrace people that love Hamas, or that think America deserved 9/11,” he said. “I think that’s reasonable.”
El-Sayed’s response was a shrug dressed up as a joke. Quoting Trump, he called Fetterman “what a lovely gentleman” — cute, but not an answer.
So Collins pressed him directly: Piker campaigned with you in Michigan as recently as Monday night. Will you renounce him?
He wouldn’t. “I’m less focused on folks who are campaigning with me, more focused on the folks I’m campaigning to,” El-Sayed said — a sentence built to sound like a stance while committing to nothing.
Then he did what politicians do when cornered: he changed the subject to the man who cornered him.
Fetterman, El-Sayed said, barely sets foot in Pennsylvania anymore, campaigned alongside Bernie Sanders, and now wants to disown him too. “I don’t know if he still thinks he’s a Democrat or not,” El-Sayed said, adding that he hoped to “hash that conversation out in person” — presumably after he’s won a Senate seat and Fetterman’s opinion matters less.
It was a deft pivot. It was also, notably, not a no.
Abdul El-Sayed doubles down on refusing to renounce Hasan Piker — who said "America deserved 9/11."
CNN: Do you have any plans to renounce Hasan Piker?
EL-SAYED: "I’m less focused on folks who are campaigning with me and more focused on the folks I’m campaigning to.” pic.twitter.com/wzYiiSfpY6
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 6, 2026
