JB Pritzker, asked whether Democrats should denounce Piker, redirects to stopping Trump
JB PritzkerGovernor of Illinois (D), interviewed on ABC's This Week
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, asked on ABC's This Week whether Democrats should denounce Hasan Piker and reject his support, said he is not focused on streamers and that Democrats should be focused on stopping Donald Trump. Asked whether he would accept Piker's support, he said he does not want to talk about it and that Piker "doesn't mean anything to me or in my election."
“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.”
Original text
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
Original text
About this source
ABC News' rush transcript of This Week for September 20, 2026, which ABC says may not be in final form. Jonathan Karl asks Pritzker whether it is time for Democrats to denounce Hasan Piker and whether he would accept Piker's support.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
Host Jonathan Karl described Piker as suggesting it would be better if Iran had a nuclear weapon and as saying that America is a bigger terrorist force than al-Qaeda, and asked Pritzker whether it is time for Democrats to say they have nothing to do with Piker, denounce him and not want his support. Between the quoted passages, Karl noted that Piker has a large following and asked whether Pritzker would accept Piker's support.
After the quotation
The interview then turned to Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding party and to whether Democrats should pursue impeachment if they win control of Congress.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
The question put to Pritzker was whether it is time for Democrats to denounce Piker and say they do not want his support, after the host described Piker's claims about al-Qaeda and Iran. Pritzker did not answer it. He said he is not focused on streamers, turned to stopping Donald Trump, and said of Piker's support that he does not "even want to talk about it." The closest competing label is Minimized, because he says Piker "doesn't mean anything" to him, but he never addresses the seriousness of the claims, so we labeled it Explicitly stayed out.
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More from this case
Read the full caseFrancesca 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
Tom Shillue calls Piker “ridiculous” but rejects the demand that El-Sayed denounce him
“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
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The Dispute Index. "JB Pritzker, asked whether Democrats should denounce Piker, redirects to stopping Trump". First published: 2026-09-30. Last updated: 2026-09-30. https://disputeindex.com/events/3420-illinois-gov-jb-pritzker-asked-on-abc-s