Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat, says nobody in either party “in their right mind” holds Piker's views
Democratic former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Fox News contributor, as a rotating co-host of The Five
“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.”
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 Ford's reply immediately after the Mao clip is played. Ford posted this same segment to his own X account the evening it aired.. 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.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
MacCallum had introduced the Axios clip in which Piker, asked whether he considered Mao a great leader, answered that Mao was “a great man of history” whose achievements were “unbelievably impressive,” adding that the Cultural Revolution was “an abject disaster.” Piker's answer is recorded separately on this dossier.
After the quotation
Jones interrupted to ask whether Ford thought some members of the Squad held such views; Ford said he did not, and continued that he knew of nobody in Congress “who would say, I want the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon” or “that Mao was a pretty good guy.” He repeated that he wished the programme would not give Piker the airtime. Ford posted the segment to his own account the same evening.
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 — Ford condemns. He calls the views “nonsense,” places them outside the range of any position held in either party, and objects that Piker's manner of expressing them normalises them. The closest competing label is explicitly_declines, because he twice says he wishes the programme would not discuss Piker at all; that loses because he answers substantively and at length before and after saying it, and his objection is to the airtime rather than to being asked.
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Hasan Piker's Axios Show interview claims about terrorism, Iran, China and Israel
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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
“Hasan Piker is going on the podcast and saying the terrible thing … what he said about Mao. And so, you know, like, “Well, Mao did a lot of great things, it was just that cultural revolution part that was a little bit, you know, wasn't good.” And so what it is is you can't talk bad about a communist or a socialist, no matter who they are, because that's what they believe. And so they have to repaint history. Now, Iran being authoritarian, because I guess that's what they believe as well, there are good parts about it. “Let them have a nuclear weapon. It's just, you know, they have a few domestic policies I don't like.” At the end of the day, Hasan Piker is a poster boy for why we should challenge birthright citizenship. His parents come here from Turkey, they go to college, they have a baby, they take him back to Turkey, they raise him there, and then he comes back here to partake in capitalism and talk bad about it.”Read statement