Symone D. Sanders Townsend
Role at the time: Co-host, "Clock It" (MS NOW)
Statement summary
Symone Sanders Townsend told Piker to his face that as a campaign strategist she would advise candidates to disavow him, arguing he does not help Democrats win.
“I used to work campaigns, Hasan, and I have to tell you, if I was a strategist or a consultant or the political director on one of these campaigns, I would absolutely be telling my people to disavow you. I really would, because we wanna win! We wanna win, and so, like, if you're not gonna help people win, distance.”
Fox News report on Hasan Piker's interview on the MS NOW podcast "Clock It," co-hosted by Symone D. Sanders Townsend and Eugene Daniels, quoting the exchange at length. The article dates the exchange to Wednesday, September 16, 2026, though one of its photo captions gives September 17. The same article separately recaps Piker's response to an attack ad against Abdul El-Sayed during an earlier Friday livestream, which took place on September 11, 2026.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Why we used this label
This case covers two prongs: whether Piker's comparison is defensible, and what his statements mean for the candidates associated with him. Sanders Townsend addresses the second prong directly and rejects the association, saying she would advise candidates to disavow him. She does not evaluate the truth of the al-Qaeda comparison itself, and this label is not a finding on that question.