Mike Figueredo
Role at the time: Host, The Humanist Report
Statement summary
Mike Figueredo defended Piker, noting that the Axios interviewer rather than Piker introduced the al-Qaeda comparison, and argued the interview was designed to generate outrage that could be used against Abdul El-Sayed.
“If you'll recall, Hasan didn't even bring up al-Qaeda on his own volition. It was the interviewer who chose to invoke al-Qaeda. ... The goal was to farm outrage off of him specifically to tee up attacks against Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim candidate that the Republican Party wants you to believe is a terrorist sympathizer.”
26-minute commentary video from progressive YouTube show The Humanist Report, published September 18, 2026, defending Piker and accusing Axios and MS NOW of manufacturing outrage. Quotations transcribed locally with mlx-whisper from the downloaded audio; the transcription renders Piker's first name as "Hassan" and Minab as "Min-Up," corrected here. Figueredo's characterisation of Axios's motives is his own assertion, not an established finding.
Why we used this label
Relative to the claim at issue -- that America commits more terrorism than al-Qaeda -- Figueredo defends it, saying critics "refuse to grapple with the substance" because the idea that America "statistically speaking, commits more acts of terrorism than Al Qaeda is too much for these people to bear." He also challenges the framing by noting the interviewer introduced the comparison.