Tom Shillue
Role at the time: Comedian and Fox News contributor, as a co-host of The Five
Statement summary
Asked for his view, Shillue said Piker was “ridiculous” but a podcaster being provocative, and that the political responsibility lay with El-Sayed, who chose to campaign with him for his audience. He said he disliked “that denounce game,” comparing it to demands that Barack Obama denounce Jeremiah Wright, and argued that El-Sayed's own record was the better target.
“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.”
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 Shillue's answer, which treats Piker as a provocateur and redirects the dispute to El-Sayed's own record.. 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)Why we used this label
Relative to the case's fixed reference point — the claims Piker made in the Axios Show interview — Shillue minimizes. He grants the criticism in a single word — “ridiculous” — and then reframes the statements as a performer's stock in trade, “he's provocative, he does that, that's his game,” which treats them as predictable rather than serious, and he expressly rejects the demand made elsewhere on this dossier by Mike Rogers and the NRSC that El-Sayed denounce him. The closest competing label is condemns, which loses because “ridiculous” is the whole of his evaluation of the statements; the substance of his answer is that they do not warrant the response they are getting and that El-Sayed's own record is the proper target.