Hasan Piker Sparks Fury With NY Times Podcast Praise of Theft and Justifying Murder: ‘Immoral And Dangerous’

Screenshot via New York Times

Progressive streamer Hasan Piker kicked up yet another wave of anger and condemnation this week when he told a New York Times podcast that stealing should be encouraged and defended support for the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, arguing that Thompson had been involved in “social murder.”

At one point during the lengthy discussion, Opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman asked Piker about Thompson’s brazen murder.

“I think 41 percent of Gen Z-ers felt that murder was morally justified. But it’s scary to be in a society where people feel that murder is morally justified. And I’m curious how we thread that line?” she asked.

Piker replied, “Yeah. Friedrich Engels wrote about the concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson, as the United Healthcare C.E.O., was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder.” He added:

The systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty, the for-profit, paywalled system of health care in this country — and the consequences of that are tremendous amounts of pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of deaths. And that was a fascinating story for me, because Americans are very draconian about crime and punishment. They’re very black and white on this issue.

And yet, because of the pervasive pain that the private health care system had created for the average American, I saw so many people immediately understand why this death had taken place.

The third person on the podcast, The New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino, later commented in reply to Piker, “It’s also worth saying there are not that many health care C.E.O.s; there are not that many industries that are as universally understood as merchants of social murder, of structural violence upon people. And it was as if the language appeared lit up within people who had never articulated it out loud.”

Tolentino did conclude by adding, “I don’t actually think, necessarily, that we have come to a place where targeted assassination is seen like it’s OK.”

Piker also sparked controversy in the past by calling for Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) to be killed during a live stream: “If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott.”

Another part of the conversation that caused a wave of angry reactions dealt with what Spiegelman dubbed “microlooting,” followed by Piker and Tolentino praising theft:

Spiegelman: Would you steal from the Louvre?
Piker: Yes.
Tolentino: I would not be logistically capable of executing such a fact, but would I cheer on every news story of people that I see doing it? Absolutely.
Piker: I think it’s cool. We’ve got to get back to cool crimes like that: bank robberies, stealing priceless artifacts, things of that nature. I feel like that’s way cooler than the 7,000th new cryptocurrency scheme that people are engaging in.
Spiegelman: Would you steal from Whole Foods?
Tolentino: Yes. And I have, under very specific circumstances. I will say, I think that stealing from a big box store — I’ll just state my platform — it’s neither very significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest or direct action. But I did steal from Whole Foods on several occasions.

Reactions of anger and condemnation quickly came in from across the political spectrum.

Reason editor Robby Soave shared the part of the conversation about theft and added, “People should be ashamed of themselves for engaging in this behavior, not bragging about it in the pages of The New York Times. Hasan Piker and Jia Tolentino are bad role models, to the extent that it seems almost beside the point to even spend any time on their loathsome politics.”

Neera Tanden, the former top Biden aide and CEO of the Center for American Progress, replied, “This whole Piker discourse has been embarrassing to every person who has tried to make him the spokesman for Democrats.”

Tanden replied to MS NOW columnist Michael Cohen, who wrote, “I’m genuinely astonished by the stunning immaturity of the views expressed by Piker and Tolentino in these clips. These are sentiments you’d expect to hear in a dorm room as someone was passing around a bong.”

Below are some more reactions from across the political spectrum:

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