Hasan Piker Defends Right to Say He Hates America
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Right 100%
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What happened
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson wrote in his newsletter that Democratic Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was “obviously right” in comments about the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and urged Michigan voters to keep Republican opponent Mike Rogers “far away from Washington.” El-Sayed, in a 2021 podcast and a since-deleted tweet around the 20th anniversary of 9/11, said the attacks scarred the United States but that the U.S. response caused large-scale death and destruction abroad. El-Sayed previously campaigned with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has said America “deserved” 9/11 and that he hates America; El-Sayed has since distanced himself from those 9/11 remarks. Rogers called El-Sayed’s 9/11 comments disqualifying for a Senate candidate; Rogers’s campaign declined to comment on Carlson’s remarks. Piker, responding to an attack ad using his clips against El-Sayed, said he has a constitutionally protected right to say he hates America while criticizing U.S. government policy.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 3 articles
3 of 3 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.
What these terms mean and how they're counted
- On the record · names a source 3 of 3
- On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Tucker Carlson, Abdul El-Sayed, Hasan Piker and Abdulrahman El-Sayed
- Primary evidence · cites a document or data 1 of 3
- Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: video
- Credits another outlet 0 of 3
- The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
- Unnamed sources 0 of 3
- The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
- How it developed
- When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 13, 15:31 UTC by New York Post, naming its source. First document 22 hours later, from Daily Wire (video).
- Not counted 0
- Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
ONE-SIDED THIS WEEK.
Only right-leaning outlets have covered this story in the last two days;
The Guardian reported it on 2026-09-10.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage has not reported this story at all. Right-leaning coverage says Tucker Carlson has all but endorsed Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed after defending his 9/11 comments and telling voters to keep Republican Mike Rogers out of Washington. The New York Post quotes Carlson saying El-Sayed is “obviously right.” Rogers called El-Sayed’s attitude unfit for office, and Carlson turned that charge on Rogers. A reader of the silent side would miss a prominent conservative siding with a Democrat against a former House intelligence chairman.
Right-leaning outlets do not even lead with the same event. The New York Post opens on Carlson’s defense of El-Sayed, while Fox News opens on Hasan Piker claiming a right to say he hates America.
Has El-Sayed accepted or rejected Carlson’s defense of his 9/11 comments?
Bottom line
A New York Post reader learns Carlson is warning Michigan off Mike Rogers and calling El-Sayed “obviously right” on 9/11; a left-leaning reader learns none of it.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Carlson wrote that El-Sayed is “obviously right” that the U.S. conducting terrorism of its own in response to 9/11 was not an appropriate reaction
- In a since-deleted tweet, El-Sayed said that after mourning 9/11 victims he would mourn about 1 million lives in three countries
- El-Sayed said in a 2021 podcast that when Americans talk about 9/11 they often fail to center people scarred by the U.S. response
- Mike Rogers said it is disqualifying for a Senate candidate to believe Americans should center their grief from 9/11
- Carlson was once a staunch proponent of the Iraq War
The Right View
The New York Post presented Carlson’s newsletter as an all-but-endorsement of El-Sayed, quoting Carlson’s defense that El-Sayed “did not celebrate airplane hijackings” and was right that the U.S. response to 9/11 was inappropriate, and his claim that Rogers—not El-Sayed—is unfit for office. The Post also noted Carlson’s recent on-air defense of Hunter Biden and Carlson’s own past 9/11 conspiracy theories and earlier support for the Iraq War. Fox News and The Daily Wire focused on Piker’s livestream response to the attack ad: he called it his “God-given” and constitutionally protected right to say he hates America, arguing the anger is at government failures on healthcare, hunger, and housing. Those outlets reported El-Sayed faced backlash for campaigning with Piker, has disavowed Piker’s 9/11 comments while criticizing “cancel culture,” and on CBS’s “Face the Nation” tried to shift the discussion from Piker to Michigan kitchen-table issues. Piker later told Fox News Digital that using the word “deserved” about 9/11 was the controversial language, not the underlying critique of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Our Take (balanced)
The story is substantive: it rests on named actors, a published newsletter, a 2021 podcast, a since-deleted tweet, livestream remarks, campaign ads, and on-the-record comments—not a single uncorroborated leak. Established: Carlson publicly defended El-Sayed’s 9/11 comments and attacked Rogers; El-Sayed made the 2021 remarks described; Piker made the “deserved” 9/11 and “hate America” comments and later defended them; El-Sayed campaigned with Piker and has since distanced himself from Piker’s 9/11 language; Rogers called those comments disqualifying. Interpretive, not established: whether Carlson’s text is an endorsement; whether El-Sayed’s remarks are “disgusting” or “unfit”; whether Piker’s clips fairly represent El-Sayed. No left-leaning outlet has reported this. Watch next for El-Sayed’s and Carlson’s further clarification, an independent archive of the deleted tweet and original Piker clips, any Rogers campaign response, and whether the associations surface in debates or independent polling in the Michigan Senate race.
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