Ritchie Torres: Piker condemns America while "lionizing Mao"
Ritchie TorresU.S. Representative (D-NY)
Ritchie Torres criticised Piker for condemning America while declining to criticise Mao Zedong, saying Piker has a rule against criticising him.
“Piker condemns America while refusing to condemn one of the 20th century's deadliest dictators, instead lionizing Mao as one of the world's 'great leaders.'”
Reporting
Where this statement fits
Hasan Piker's Axios Show interview claims about terrorism, Iran, China and Israel
In an interview for "The Axios Show" conducted by Alex Thompson, Hasan Piker was asked whether America commits more terrorism than the organization behind the September 11 attacks and answered "Pound for pound as far as the number of deaths, yes," adding that the United States has "caused tremendous terror all around the world." He cited a U.S. missile strike on an elementary school in Minab, Iran, and said the analysis does not justify the September 11 attacks. Excerpts published September 17, 2026 also carried his view that the Middle East would be more stable if Iran had a nuclear weapon, while he said he does not want Iran, the United States, Russia or China to possess nuclear arms and was not advocating Iranian armament. The full episode, published September 18, added further contested claims: that Mao Zedong was "a great man of history" whose "excesses" were "deaths born out of mismanagement and famine"; that a Chinese child may have better conditions than an American one within two decades; that "Zionism is fascism" and that he is not worried his audience would turn violent against Zionists; and that Israel "in its current formation" should not be a U.S. ally. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan for whom Piker campaigned in the primary, rejected the al-Qaeda comparison. The dispute is whether these claims are defensible analysis of U.S., Middle Eastern and Chinese policy or indefensible positions, and what they mean for the candidates associated with him.
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
Daily Signal report on Democratic officials criticising Piker after the Axios interview, quoting Reps. Ritchie Torres and Josh Gottheimer. The piece states Gottheimer's remarks were made on X; it does not explicitly name the venue for Torres's remarks, which are introduced only as what Torres "added." Torres's characterisation of Piker's position on Mao is his own.
Before the quotation
Reported September 18, 2026 among Democratic officials criticising Piker after the Axios interview. Torres also said that "rather strangely," Piker has "a rule against criticizing Mao Zedong."
After the quotation
Torres's characterisation of Piker's position on Mao is his own.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Piker's assertion that America commits more terrorism than al-Qaeda, Torres rejects it by attacking its consistency, arguing Piker applies condemnation to the United States but not to Mao. He disputes the standard behind the comparison rather than the death-toll arithmetic.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Hasan Piker
More from this case
Read the full caseJB Pritzker, asked whether Democrats should denounce Piker, redirects to stopping Trump
“You know, I'm not focused on the streamers and what they're saying. There's a whole lot of them, and they got a whole lot of views. I'm just saying that what I think we should be talking about and focused on is how do we stop Donald Trump in his tracks? How do we make sure that we're putting forward an agenda that really fights for the people who need it, which are the most vulnerable? The workers, you know, the middle class who really need someone to stand up for them. That's why I'm a Democrat. That's why the Democratic Party exists. That's what we should be focused on. You know, again, I'm not focused. I don't even want to talk about it. Hasan Piker doesn't mean anything to me or in my election.”Read statement
Francesca Fiorentini says Piker’s critics “made him the media figure for bad reasons” and would prefer he “do nothing at all”
“You made him the media figure for bad reasons. He was out here minding his damn business.” … “They would be absolutely okay with him utilizing his millions of followers to do nothing at all, because they would prefer that than for him to use the followers to actually boot out these do-nothing establishment Democrats”Read statement
Emma Vigeland says a “coordinated campaign” is what could make Piker “politically toxic” and faults Symone Sanders as an interviewer
“I mean, she didn’t listen to anything that he said. What she responded to was completely disconnected from the point he was making. I’m shocked at how poor of an interviewer she is and listener, if she was listening at all.” … “They feel like they have hours and hours of footage of [Hasan] sometimes saying edgy or inflammatory things by their own conservative standards, and they feel like this is a figure that we can define. And so when they act like, why are you going out there to campaign for candidates if you’re so politically toxic, as if this coordinated campaign against him wasn’t what would potentially make him politically toxic.”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "Ritchie Torres: Piker condemns America while "lionizing Mao"". First published: 2026-09-18. Last updated: 2026-09-22. https://disputeindex.com/events/1027-ritchie-torres-criticised-piker-for-condemning-america-while