Martha MacCallum sets Iran's conduct against Piker's “regardless of their domestic policies”
Fox News anchor, hosting The Five
“When he talked about Iran, he said they have a right to defend themselves regardless of their domestic policies, which I would point out include slaughtering tens of thousands of their own people in the streets, squalor, no economy to speak of, killing gay people, zero rights for women in Iran, and chanting death to Israel with the intention of annihilation and elimination of Israel and the United States. But he says regardless of their domestic policies, they should have a weapon.”
Source and context
Original video
About this source
Fox News' own recording of the twelve-minute opening segment of The Five for 18 September 2026, in which the panel discusses Hasan Piker's Axios Show interview. The segment plays the Axios clips of Piker on Iran's nuclear programme and on Mao Zedong, and the Oval Office exchange in which President Trump called Piker "a terrible liability." This locator carries MacCallum's reply to the Iran clip, delivered as she hands the discussion to Joey Jones.. Speakers were identified from the broadcast itself: MacCallum names the panel in the opening line and hands to each of them by name, and each speaker was confirmed on camera at their locator. Fox's own @TheFive account attributes the closing lines of this passage to Jones, and Fox's page for the segment attributes "the Democratic Party has allowed itself to be infiltrated by influencers" to Conway.
Before the quotation
The programme had just played two clips from the Axios Show interview, in which Piker said Iran “much like any other sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself, regardless of its domestic policies,” and that he believed the Middle East “would be more stable” if Iran had a nuclear weapon. Piker's answer is recorded separately on this dossier.
After the quotation
MacCallum handed to Johnny “Joey” Jones, who replied that he agreed with Piker “in the sense of my assessment of Iran is regardless of its domestic policies” — but for the opposite reason — before criticising him at length. MacCallum later introduced the Mao clip and turned to Harold Ford Jr.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Hasan Piker's Axios Show interview claims about terrorism, Iran, China and Israel
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Relative to the case's fixed reference point — the claims Piker made in the Axios Show interview — MacCallum condemns. She does not merely play the Iran answer back; she sets Piker's stated qualifier against an itemised account of the Iranian government's conduct, which evaluates the claim rather than describing it, and she endorses the President's assessment of Piker as a distraction. The closest competing label is challenges_characterization, which loses because she does not dispute how Piker's position has been described — she accepts his description of it and rejects the position.
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- People and groups discussed
- Hasan Piker
Hasan Piker's Axios Show interview claims about terrorism, Iran, China and Israel
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More from this case
Read the full case“Obviously, Hasan Piker is ridiculous. He is a podcaster, he's provocative, he does that, that's his game. But the politicians decided. El-Sayed decided to pal around with him. Why? Because they thought, “I can deal with this controversy because I want his likes, I want his listeners, his viewers.” So he is tied to him. … I don't like that denounce game. You know, I remember we tried that with Obama: “When will you denounce Reverend Wright?” … El-Sayed is on record. He has a terrible record. He's a terrible leftist. So denounce him. Don't say, “When are you going to denounce this other guy?” He's got enough bad things to his name.”Read statement
“So, Harold, respectfully, I know at least one person who's willing to entertain this. His name is Abdul El-Sayed. He's palling around with this guy. He will not disclaim him and the crazy by-the-moment things that he's saying. And I think that Hasan Piker the person is actually even less important than Hasan Piker the performance artist now, because it represents how difficult it is now and will be in 2028 for Democrats to transition from shock-the-conscience crazy talk in the primaries to trying to present themselves as reasonable and semi-capitalist and connected to voters, to everyday voters. The way that some responsible Democrats wanted to distance themselves and their party from Graham Platner and his Nazi tattoo and his abuse of women and his adultery, I think that people should be doing that now with Hasan Piker. Here's the problem with Piker: the Democratic Party has allowed itself to be infiltrated by influencers and streamers and to live online.”Read statement
“These views are so outside the periphery of the most extreme views in either political party in all of politics in America. And the fact — in some ways I'm disappointed we've been giving this nonsense airtime, because he talks about it in ways, I think, to Joey's point, that he almost tries to normalize it. No Democrat, no Republican, no progressive Democrat or liberal Democrat in their right mind subscribes to any of this. I'm a conservative Democrat.”Read statement