Rogers demands El-Sayed condemn Piker over the al-Qaeda comparison
Mike RogersRepublican nominee for United States Senate in Michigan, posting from his campaign account
Within hours of the interview, Rogers posted that Piker had said America is worse than al-Qaeda, described Piker as El-Sayed's running mate, and demanded that El-Sayed condemn him. El-Sayed had already rejected the comparison in a statement to Axios.
“BREAKING: Conman @AbdulElSayed’s running mate Hasan Piker just said that America is worse than Al-Qaeda. Abdul — enough is enough. Condemn Piker once and for all.”
Original post
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 post
About this source
Mike Rogers's own post from his Senate campaign account on 17 September 2026, responding to Piker's Axios interview the same day. Secondary reporting consistently quotes only the first sentence and renders the live handle as "[Abdul El-Sayed's]"; the post continues "Abdul — enough is enough. Condemn Piker once and for all," which is the actual demand. This is distinct from Rogers's 10 September remarks at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, which predate the interview and belong to the separate case on his September 11 accusation.
Before the quotation
Piker campaigned for El-Sayed in Michigan's Democratic primary, and Republican-aligned groups have spent close to three million dollars on advertising tying the two together. Rogers had attacked the association at the Republican midterm convention a week earlier.
After the quotation
El-Sayed had already told Axios he did not agree with the statement and gave little weight to a social media streamer. No further response from El-Sayed to Rogers's demand was found.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Rogers treats the claim as self-evidently disqualifying and demands it be condemned, which is a rejection of the claim rather than a dispute about how it has been described. The closest competing label is “Challenged the characterization”, which loses because he does not argue Piker has been misquoted or misread; he takes the comparison at face value and rejects it. His description of Piker as El-Sayed's running mate is campaign framing rather than a factual claim about any formal role.
- Recorded on
- Published here
- People and groups discussed
- Hasan Piker, Abdul El-Sayed
More from this case
Read the full caseKulinski defends Piker's comparison of U.S. actions with terrorism
“everything that Hasan said there is 100 percent factually true.”Read statement
JB 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
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The Dispute Index. "Rogers demands El-Sayed condemn Piker over the al-Qaeda comparison". First published: 2026-09-17. Last updated: 2026-09-22. https://disputeindex.com/events/968-within-hours-of-the-interview-rogers-posted-that