Twitch streamer Hasan Piker used his Friday livestream to defend comments in which he said he hates America, calling it his “God-given” and “constitutionally protected right” to say so. The remarks have become a flashpoint in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race, where an attack ad tying Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed to Piker has circulated clips of the streamer’s past statements.
In the clips featured in the ad, Piker says: “Bro, I hate this country, dude. I hate America. Oh God, I f—ing hate America so much.”
Responding to the ad on his show, Piker did not walk back the sentiment. “Of course I’m a God—- American. It is my God—- God-given and constitutionally protected right to say I hate America if America is actually f—ing over Americans,” he said. “You can clip chimp it all day. It doesn’t change that. It doesn’t change that mentality.”
He argued that critics, including some fellow liberals and “virtually the entirety of the Republican Party,” were wrong to portray him as an America-hater rather than someone angry at government policy. “To present this as like, oh, ‘these guys are real America haters’ as some liberals have been doing on the timeline, as virtually the entirety of the Republican Party is doing is so f—ing stupid,” he said.
Piker went on to frame his anger as a response to government failures rather than the country itself. “How can you not get angry and resentful about a government that does nothing to treat its sickly, to feed its hungry, to feed its starving, to shelter its homeless, when we have all the money we have an abundance of wealth and prosperity, and we just refuse to spread it around?” he said. “Of course that makes me f—ing angry. It’s shocking to me that you act as though it doesn’t make you angry at all.”
Fox News Digital, which first reported the comments, said it reached out to Piker for further comment.
The El-Sayed Connection
El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, campaigned alongside Piker during the primary. That association drew criticism after Piker was reported to have said America “deserved” the September 11 attacks. As he moves into the general election, El-Sayed has distanced himself from Piker, disavowing the 9/11 remarks while also criticizing what he described as “cancel culture.”
Piker himself has since acknowledged his word choice went too far, even as he stood by the underlying argument. Speaking to Fox News Digital at the 2026 Socialism Conference in Chicago last week, he said his original comments were aimed at U.S. “meddling in the affairs in the Middle East” and conceded he should not have used the word “deserved.”
“It’s not a controversial thing [to argue]. It was the language that I used that was controversial,” Piker said.
The controversy has also drawn attention after Piker was seen with a framed newspaper covering the September 11 attacks in the background of one of his streams, prompting further scrutiny of his commentary on the country.
