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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
The Left Insurgency. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired August 02, 2026 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
ABEL: Airs next on CNN and tomorrow on the CNN app.
And before we go, we want to say a special thank you to our director, Steve Feinberg, who is hanging up his headset and retiring after 44 years at CNN.
Surprise, and congratulations, sir. Everybody here will certainly miss you.
Thank you for joining me. I'm Brian Abel. Remember if you are in the U.S., you can now stream CNN whenever you want on the CNN app, visit CNN.com/Watch for more. And we will see you again next weekend.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper. Welcome to THE WHOLE STORY.
On Tuesday, five states will hold primary elections, including Missouri and Michigan, where progressive Democrats are challenging more centrist Democrats for the House and Senate. It's part of a wave of far-left candidates bucking the establishment and energizing a mostly younger base. A number of these candidates have already won their primaries in places like New York and Colorado and Washington, D.C..
But with the midterm elections just three months away, some Democrats are questioning if this insurgency on the left is the party's future or a liability when it comes to winning against Republicans.
In this next hour, CNN's Donie O'Sullivan speaks with this new generation of progressives challenging the party norms, and also visit some of the most seasoned political veterans in the Democratic Party to see what they think about the younger generation and if they have what it takes to win in November.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HASAN PIKER, INTERNET PERSONALITY: This is my first time in Chicago. It's my first time at any convention. I wanted to go to the RNC. They would not let me.
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I first met Hasan Piker in Chicago back in 2024. He was on his way into the Democratic National Convention. Are you a Harris supporter?
PIKER: What is that? I'm a Harris supporter?
O'SULLIVAN: You'll vote for her?
PIKER: Maybe. We'll see. I'm a firm believer that politicians need to earn your vote. I think the Democrats have an attitude sometimes that because of lesser evil voting.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
PIKER: And harm reduction, they feel like they're entitled to the vote of the average citizen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. You're all set.
PIKER: Thank you. Here you go. What's going on? I'm not committed to the Democratic Party. That doesn't mean I'm going to vote for the Republicans obviously, that, like, terrifies people. Hi. Hasan. Nice to meet you.
O'SULLIVAN: You're going to go live as soon as you get up there?
PIKER: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Piker had been invited to the convention as part of Creators for Kamala.
PIKER: This backdrop is ass, right? But that backdrop, this is fire.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): An attempt by the DNC to bring streamers and influencers into the Democratic tent. But Piker had other ideas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Free, free Palestine.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Like the protesters gathering outside the convention's gates and like even some of the delegates on the convention floor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vice President Harris, we will support you when you call for a ceasefire and an arms embargo, you will be greeted with the most applause.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Piker was threatening not to vote for the Democratic nominee for president.
PIKER: When are you endorsing this ticket? I mean, when I see some (EXPLETIVE DELETED) momentum on Gaza.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Hogg, survivor of the Parkland shooting and co-founder of March for Our Lives.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): David Hogg was in Chicago, too. And while he's gone on TV backing Harris --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do young voters like Kamala Harris?
DAVID HOGG, CO-FOUNDER, MARCH FOR OUR LIVES: Ultimately, I think it's that they're excited for somebody new.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): He warned the party needed to change its approach to the war in Gaza.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lift the siege on Gaza now.
HOGG: I'm not a foreign policy expert, but I don't think you need to be one to know that what we're doing hasn't been working. I don't want to see this horrific violence continue anywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the river to the sea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you think there was this division at the DNC?
PIKER: Because the Democrats are in charge right now. They're the power -- they're the party in power. They are funding and facilitating, aiding and abetting Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The issues that Piker and Hogg were talking about back in Chicago --
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (INAUDIBLE) a genocide.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): -- have come to play a defining role in the fight for the future of the Democratic Party.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hogg and Piker are now part of an insurgency.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Hogg has pledged to spend millions funding primary challenges to what he calls asleep at the wheel Democrats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hasan Piker, who, to quote Politico, "is driving a wedge in the Democratic Party."
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): An insurgency against centrist Democrats, one that is challenging party norms.
[20:05:06]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These races do seem representative of the real struggle the party is going through right now post-2024.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And energizing young voters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abolish ICE, free Palestine and tax the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) rich.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): An insurgency that hopes to spark a revolution in the Democratic Party. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): It's No Kings weekend. And tens of thousands
of people, young and old, have descended on Midtown Manhattan.
Where do we think the first of this actually is?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Honest I don't believe in the Democrat Party at all. I think they're all feckless losers.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The Iran war has been raging for months, and while everyone here is protesting President Trump, many are also frustrated with the Democratic Party.
CYNTHIA NIXON, ACTRESS AND ACTIVIST: I think the Democratic Party, because of its donor base, keeps trying to push its base towards the center, and nobody wants to be in the center right now.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda in "Sex and the City," ran for governor of New York as a progressive in 2018.
I've always identified as a Miranda. So --
NIXON: Well, thank you.
O'SULLIVAN: What has do you think changed within the Democratic Party since you ran for governor?
NIXON: I think not enough has changed within the Democratic Party. And I think the Democratic Party is a slow, lumbering giant, very slow to wake up.
MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: No kings --
PROTESTERS: No kings.
MAMDANI: No Cuomo.
PROTESTERS: No Cuomo.
MAMDANI: No ICE.
PROTESTERS: No ICE.
NIXON: The election of Zoran Mamdani. He's a Democratic socialist, which is a dirty word for a lot of people. We've got more and more people like him running across the country.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): At the heart of the insurgency is the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA is the largest socialist political organization in the country, and it's working to pull the Democratic Party to the left.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Bernie Sanders.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Today they are holding a rally here in the Bronx in support of their New York candidates.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): It is not Bernie. It is you. It's all of us together. The work that you did to elect Zohran as mayor will not only impact this city, it is reverberating all over the world.
O'SULLIVAN: You're a Democratic socialist.
DARIALIZA AVILA CHEVALIER, DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST: I am.
O'SULLIVAN: You've never run for office before.
(Voice-over): Darializa Avila Chevalier is one of the candidates running for DSA in New York.
CHEVALIER: Folks need to be able to see themselves in the Democratic Party again. I, like them, have felt abandoned by the establishment that are sending all our money onto these foreign wars. We need folks who are willing to reinvest that money into our communities, into our babies, making sure that we have universal childcare, free public education from cradle to college.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hasan Piker has become a regular fixture at rallies for DSA and other left-wing candidates, many of whom are seeking to unseat these Democratic incumbents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make some noise for Hasan Piker.
PIKER: I have never seen a crop of talent as bold and as brave as the New York City DSA slate. People are demanding a different politics, something not beholden to corporate or pro-Israel or imperialist interests.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed plans to rally with far-left, anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker.
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: This is about being able to bring people back into our politics.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): As Piker's influence has grown, so too has scrutiny of his political position and his past statements.
PIKER: America deserved 9/11, dude. I'm (EXPLETIVE DELETED) saying it. Palestinians have a right to dignity, a right to emancipation, a right to live (EXPLETIVE DELETED) free lives, free from this occupation. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if (EXPLETIVE DELETED) rapes happened on October 7th. Like that doesn't change the dynamic for me even this much.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Some view Piker and the wider DSA and left- wing movement as dangerous.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: Hasan Piker, one of the most outspoken, toxic, antisemitic influencers in the world.
JONATHAN COWAN, PRESIDENT, THIRD WAY: The DSA is an insane organization. It is literally rat poison anywhere outside of the most deep blue places in America.
[20:10:02]
JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Why do these people call themselves Democrat? Call yourself Democratic socialists.
O'SULLIVAN: I mean, I think a lot of them do, right?
CARVILLE: Right. But don't call yourself Democrats.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But others see the campaign as a reckoning for a party out of step with its voters.
TOMMY VIETOR, POD SAVE AMERICA: There's a debate about what voters want and what makes a candidate elected. The battle for the future of the Democratic Party is not going to play out like it used to.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): So I am hitting the campaign trail. Talking to candidates.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's go knock some doors. Let's win.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And those working behind the scenes. Following the fight for the future of the Democratic Party.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we do?
PROTESTERS: (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we do?
PROTESTERS: (INAUDIBLE).
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Heavily armed SWAT teams, armored vehicles surrounding Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: A deadly school shooting in south Florida.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The shooter walked down the hallway. I heard a young man crying for his mother.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): After 17 people were killed in a shooting at his high school in Parkland, Florida.
HOGG: People are going to keep saying it's never going to happen to me, but when you don't take action, things like this eventually will happen to you.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): David Hogg dedicated his life to political activism.
HOGG: We will save lives.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In February of last year. HOGG: How are we doing, fellow Democrats?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): He became co-chair of the DNC and led an effort to unseat Democrats in primary elections, who he said were asleep at the wheel.
HOGG: We are here to find the most effective young people in our country, truly generational leaders, and replace people that are failing to meet the moment right now.
COLBY ITKOWITZ, CO-HOST POST REPORTS: It's pretty unusual for a top member of Democratic leadership to openly plot to kick incumbents out of office. And yet that's what my guest today is doing.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The move was not well-received by party leaders and party elders.
CARVILLE: To go out and raise money to defeat members of the same party. I think that's a jackass rate of the highest level.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): After a few months, Hogg resigned from the DNC, but he's continued fighting for generational change.
HOGG: You found me in my native habitat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to introduce David Hogg, who has been working to engage younger voters.
HOGG: I'm here today because I want to feel hope and politics again.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hogg is using his PAC Leaders We Deserve to support young candidates who refuse to accept dark, special interest money.
HOGG: Maybe the reason young people are not huge fans of Democrats or politics in general is because politics doesn't give a shit about them. You guys ready to change that?
CROWD: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: Why was there a need for what you're doing within the Democratic Party's infrastructure?
[20:15:02]
HOGG: I've seen the Democrats. I mean, if you look at Congress, I think it kind of speaks for itself. We have a government that is dominated and focused on people that are legislating that are not going to live to see the effects of many of the policies that they're passing. The reality is, we cannot continue to sell democracy to a generation that the system that we call democracy is not working for. And I think New York City is actually one of the first places we did that. We were Zohran's largest funder in his primary. We spent $300,000 supporting him.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Today, he's campaigning in Brooklyn with Claire Valdez, a Democrat primary candidate in New York's Seventh District.
CLAIRE VALDEZ (D), NEW YORK ASSEMBLYMEMBER: I'm Claire Valdes, and I approve this message because this campaign is about you, not me.
MAMDANI: But can I talk about you?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Like Mamdani, Valdez is a Democratic socialist.
The sort of older generation that is afraid of the word socialist. That's not sticking with young people, right?
VALDEZ: It's true. And, you know, we see after poll after poll that Democratic socialism is becoming more popular, kind of in every age group, but especially with young voters. And I think it's precisely because, you know, like me, so many people have worked low-wage jobs, felt like they had no career path, felt really locked out of homeownership and what we've, you know, traditionally thought of as the American dream. And we know that the system is the problem.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani will be elected the next mayor of New York, New York.
PIKER: It's impossible not to feel a sense of hope for a better tomorrow.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Mamdani's historic win and success with an openly Democratic socialist platform shocked many within the Democratic Party.
PIKER: I no longer have to prove that this kind of politics works. I can just point to (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Zohran.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One communist on the faculty of one university is one communist too many.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Communism and socialism have long been bad words in American politics. Dating back to the McCarthy hearings and the Cold War, America stood for capitalism.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They used the word social Democrat because it sounds so nice, but it's really communism. It's what I think, yes.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But that is changing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You understand, I think rightly, this is social democracy. This is not gulag socialism. This is not the Soviet Union socialism.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Socialism, on the other hand, up like a rocket. Look at this. Two in three Democrats have a favorable view of socialism.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Capitalism is even less popular among young people. HOGG: If politicians want to know how to get elected, it is not
complicated. Do your job and represent the people, not the special interests buying out our elections.
What I think a lot about is the fact that if we do not start making our political system work for people that feel like they are living in a broken promise, where they've done as a generation everything we've been told on average, right? We've gone to college at some of the highest rates of anybody, of any generation in American history. Contrary
to popular belief, we've actually voted at the highest rates of any generational cohort at our age in American history. Consistently.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Often when belief in the system collapses, civil unrest and violence follow.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The CEO of United Healthcare was murdered this morning.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Some young Americans celebrated the murder of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
ASHLEY ROJAS, LUIGI MANGIONE SUPPORTER: Unfortunately, I don't think that we really lost like that great of a member of our society.
O'SULLIVAN: How do you think Brian Thompson's family feels when he hears -- when they hear that?
ROJAS: Well, obviously I'm not going to try to say something insensitive about his children, but I do want to kind of remind the people that he was also denying lifesaving care to hundreds, if not thousands of families. How do you think their families feel when their loved ones are lost?
O'SULLIVAN: How do you feel about that? And clearly, as somebody who has survived gun violence in this country.
HOGG: It -- I'll tell you, it is the thing that keeps me up at night more than anything. And it's not just like that specific instance. There is a deep, deep, deep frustration with how our political system is not working for the people who need it most. If we do not start to make it work, people are going to find somebody who promises to do that, even if it's without democracy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to fight against a system designed to keep us separated and divided and marginalize and oppressed.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): There is clearly an appetite for change, but Democrats are divided on just how radical that change should be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We say no more to the Democratic collaborators, too.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) KEITH EDWARDS, PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I thought the big takeaway in 2024 was Democrats need to go everywhere. Wasn't that the takeaway?
[20:20:01]
I'm shocked that we're seeing moderate center-left Democrats saying they're not even to speak to Hasan Piker when we know that the best way to get a message out is to go to places where they might not otherwise hear it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, thank you, thank you. Thank you.
[20:25:01]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We got to get a picture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I appreciate you, homie.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's so cute.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We also have with us, Mr. Hasan Piker.
PIKER: What's going on, St. Louis?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hasan Piker has been traveling the country, leveraging his online fame to back progressive candidates and broadcasting their rallies to his three million Twitch followers.
PIKER: We all know the Republicans are corrupt. We all know that they're monsters. They're racists. They traffic in hatred. But we are here to say we are no longer going to vote for do-nothing Democrats either. We're voting for Democrats with a purpose.
O'SULLIVAN: It feels like you're running.
PIKER: No. It's what people keep saying. But I'm not.
O'SULLIVAN: Are you concerned that pushing the candidates that you're pushing you might end up hurting the Democrats nationally in a general election?
PIKER: I've heard this concern a lot. They said my allegiance with Zohran was actually going to hurt his chances. Andrew Cuomo tried to exploit that. He tried to really hammer on this point that I was a dangerous radical, and so was Zohran by associating with me. I think for far too long, the conventional wisdom in Washington was don't respond to the needs of the people. Always focus test your messaging and try to find a moderate centrist vision.
And we're finding out that the Zohran style candidacy, the Bernie- crats, are rising up in popularity and fighting against the establishment and seeing tremendous success.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Tremendous success indeed. The political story of the summer is the far-left's success in New York, in Colorado, California, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: May God bless the United States of America.
O'SULLIVAN: Mr. Carville, nice to meet you. I'm Donie O'Sullivan.
(Voice-over): One might think all the energy and excitement about a new generation of candidates might be a cause for celebration within the Democratic Party.
CARVILLE: This is what I call a sign of an advanced civilization.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But not for party veteran James Carville.
How are you feeling about the midterms?
CARVILLE: I feel very good. The only thing that can derail us, we could nominate some of the wrong candidates in the wrong place and not be as successful as I hope.
O'SULLIVAN: The wrong candidates. What you mean by that?
CARVILLE: All right, let's take in Michigan. And El-Sayed is highly competent, but he's way left. I see challenges from the, quote, "progressive left," unquote, and these people are too hard headed to know that they're not popular. People don't like them. And -- but if you get a skewed turnout in a primary, you might end up losing a race that you should have never lost in the first place.
O'SULLIVAN: When you say progressive left, you sort of -- there's a tone of contempt there.
CARVILLE: Yes. Yes. So you were very wise. I hope the camera was able to pick up the contempt.
O'SULLIVAN: This is high definition. Yes.
CARVILLE: They don't win elections. They never run against Republicans. They just run against other Democrats. And their only message is we're going to blow everything up.
AARON ZITNER, REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: At this point, you hadn't vetted Graham Platner. You hadn't done a full scrub of who he is. How did you go about vetting him?
GRAHAM PLATNER, FORMER MAINE CANDIDATE: Thank you all very much.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Many of the insurgent left candidates are unconventional.
DANIEL MORAFF, POLITICAL STRATEGIST, GRAHAM PLATNER CAMPAIGN: If what the voters wanted were people who were grown in vats and had never done or said anything that they might regret their entire lives, we'd have a very different country.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Platner, who said he was unaware of the tattoo's Nazi association, explained that it was the result of a drunken night out 18 years ago.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And some have generated a lot of controversy.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Darializa Avila Chevalier is now facing questions about deleted tweets saying that she's sympathetic to communism, to Soviet figures, criticizing interracial relationships, saying black and Arab men are both fetishizing ugly colonizer women.
CHEVALIER: I did not delete those tweets because I was running for office. I deleted my entire Twitter account many years ago.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): With one accusation culminating in Graham Platner ending his bid for Senate.
TAPPER: Did Graham Platner rape you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: By definition, yes.
PLATNER: Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.
[20:30:03]
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Back in Washington, D.C., it's not only the left-wing candidates that are making some Democrats nervous. It's also their support from Hasan Piker. Jonathan Cowan runs the Democratic centrist group Third Way.
COWAN: Hasan Piker is unknown to most Americans who determine elections. Swing independent voters have never heard of Hasan Piker. The ones who have wouldn't like him. He's known and popular among a very small subset of young people who are super online and very radicalized. Fine. Have at it. That's how he makes a living.
O'SULLIVAN: You mentioned Piker isn't that famous. But you wrote a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed about him. Why did you think it was important to do that?
COWAN: We called him out because we wanted to warn mainstream Democrats not to associate with him, not to elevate him, not to put him on their platforms or campaign with him, because, in fact, that will drive away the swing independent and moderate voters that they need to win.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): On Capitol Hill, Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer went so far as to co-author a resolution condemning Piker for what he described as antisemitic hate speech.
REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): This is hate speech intended to incite violence.
O'SULLIVAN: Are you surprised at just how big an issue Israel has become?
GOTTHEIMER: I'm kind of surprised how this issue has become almost a litmus test in primaries across the country.
O'SULLIVAN: How do you think that's happened?
GOTTHEIMER: Sometimes these issues just -- they get a mind of their own. I don't even think when I talk to voters about it and say, well, you're screaming and yelling at me. What are you -- what really are you upset about? And it's based on part, I think, a lot of disinformation out there. I often don't really get an answer, except, I don't know, I saw something on TikTok.
O'SULLIVAN: Hasan Piker, you introduced a resolution condemning him along with Candace Owens.
GOTTHEIMER: Correct.
O'SULLIVAN: For, I think, what you characterized as antisemitic hate speech. Can you talk us through why was it important to single out Hasan Piker and Candace Owens in particular?
GOTTHEIMER: Well, you know, when you start ignoring hatred and this is, again, look at history against any community in this view, the hatred bubbles up. And if you don't put it out, if you don't extinguish the fire, the flames just grow. And Hasan Piker is not just some random guy walking down the street screaming something hate filled. He has millions of followers on his streaming platform. By the way, so does Candace Owens, right?
Left and right, but still both filled with anger and spewing just, not only disinformation, just lies and deceit, but ginning people up and targeting communities, including Jewish people.
O'SULLIVAN: Hasan Piker, of the many controversial statements he has made, he has disavowed some. He has said some have been taken out of context. But I mean, ultimately, he stands by statements in terms of broad support for Hezbollah, broad support for Hamas. But there's also viral clips of him at a speech, I think, in Oxford in the United Kingdom, talking about antisemitism and the plague that that is.
PIKER: Antisemitism is a canary in the coal mine of fascism. It's one of the oldest bigotries that has caused those of the Jewish faith a tremendous amount of pain. From pogroms to the Holocaust, Jews have always been singled out by those in power as a scapegoat for instability and economic volatility.
O'SULLIVAN: Hasan Picker's argument is that he is anti-Zionist and not antisemitic, and that they are two very different things.
GOTTHEIMER: If that's what he believes in, he should probably practice that because he has done a very good job of smushing the two together.
PIKER: We have Bernie Sanders and AOC in the building.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Despite the controversies, there are prominent Democrats who recognize Piker's influence and want his followers in the party.
PIKER: I'm going to do rapid fire now.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): For many on the left, Israel has become a litmus test.
PIKER: Calling out Israel's genocide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guilty.
PIKER: Ending aid to Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PIKER: Sanctioning Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
PIKER: A free Palestine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But just how fine is the line between criticism of Israel --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only real tolerated form of antisemitism is anti-Zionism. Zionism, as we just heard, is simply the right of the Jews to self-determination in their historic homeland.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And antisemitic hate.
What you're saying here about voting for Hamas?
PIKER: I'm not literally capable of voting for Hamas or Israel.
O'SULLIVAN: But isn't that the point, though, right? Like, so why say it?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:39:35]
PIKER: Let's see how many phone calls we got today. Last number check was 60,000 dials. Keep pumping those phones. Keep making those calls. Keep smiling and dialing.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hasan Piker streams live for up to 10 hours a day from his home in Los Angeles.
PIKER: There is other opportunities to do phone banking. Leading into election day as well. Anyway, love you all and I will see you tomorrow same time, same place.
[20:40:04]
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): For his critics the 35-year-old has become a symbol of the far-left insurgency in the Democratic Party.
PIKER: All right, we're here.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): One that they say will lose general elections and hurt Democrats' chances of taking over the Senate in the midterms.
PIKER: Our community will (EXPLETIVE DELETED) be there every step of the way.
O'SULLIVAN: James Carville says this is all going to implode at the general election.
PIKER: Yes, as opposed to previous neoliberal Democratic candidacies that have been spectacular successes so far. You know, Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024. I don't think I'm, like, exceptionally good at proselytizing the gospel of socialism necessarily. I think there are a lot of people who are just like, this is not working. Cost of living crisis is completely out of control.
Democrats haven't done anything about it. Republicans haven't done anything about it. There has to be a different alternative.
EL-SAYED: Money out of?
PROTESTERS: Politics.
EL-SAYED: And money in your?
PROTESTERS: Pocket.
EL-SAYED: Medicare for?
PROTESTERS: All.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Piker became an issue himself in the Democratic Party when he first campaigned with Abdul El-Sayed, who was running in the Michigan Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abdul El-Sayed.
PIKER: That's a state that Trump won. And Abdul El-sayed is my guy. There was a lot of controversy surrounding my affiliation with him. And there was a month of media coverage. And in the aftermath of that polls came out and it showed that Abdul had actually risen to the top. He was in third place before that happened, and he was in first place after it happened.
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): What Josh and I are trying to do in putting this resolution forward is to say enough.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The House resolution sponsored by Congressman Gottheimer and Lawler detailed some of Piker's controversial statements.
GOTTHEIMER: With people like Owens and Piker, and they're not welcome in our districts. And none of this language is acceptable either. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): While he has apologized for some of his
comments and has said others were taken out of context, he has continued to praise Hamas.
You seen this?
PIKER: Yes, I have.
O'SULLIVAN: A House resolution.
PIKER: That's never going to get passed, too.
O'SULLIVAN: Hasan Piker, a prominent online streamer, has often used antisemitic rhetoric, including expressing support for Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Why do you express support for Hamas?
PIKER: Well, I wouldn't say I express support for all of Hamas's actions or anything. I do say that the Palestinian resistance largely does have an internationally recognized right to resist. Do they violate that sometimes with war crimes? Absolutely. And Hamas certainly has as well. But at the end of the day, Palestinians do have a right to resist militarily.
JON FAVREAU, POD SAVE AMERICA: When you say Hamas a thousand times better, do you actually mean that or is that a rhetorical move or like a solidarity signal? Like what?
PIKER: I mean, it's all of the above. I do mean it. I think it's a rhetorical move because it frustrates a lot of people. I've also said I'm a harm reduction voter. I'm a lesser evil voter. And therefore I would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time.
O'SULLIVAN: If you say you're voting for Hamas, you're voting for limited rights for women, you're voting for homophobia. But, I mean, like, this is -- right?
PIKER: No.
O'SULLIVAN: Like when you say you're voting for Hamas.
PIKER: It's not an endorsement of their domestic policies. But I don't think anyone actually cares about their domestic policies. I certainly don't. Every Palestinian, at the end of the day, regardless of their disagreements with Hamas, will always say that Israel is still -- the Israeli occupation is the greatest problem that they're facing, the most existential problem that they're facing.
O'SULLIVAN: You understand when just the regular American --
PIKER: Of course. That's the reason --
O'SULLIVAN: When they see all this.
PIKER: Well, that's the purpose of that document. The purpose of that document is not to be like, this guy has spent the last 13 years combating far-right antisemitism and far-right radicalization, and still continues to do so to this day. As someone who's an anti- fascist, I'm going to oppose Zionism, which is a fascist ideology. These guys can't defend that. So they have to attack its prominent critics.
I will always, always call out antisemitism. It's gross. It's immoral. It is a hate crime. There is no space for antisemitism.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hang around the progressive left for any amount of time, and you'll likely hear about AIPAC.
MAMDANI: I'm speaking about AIPAC.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: AIPAC funding.
SANDERS: What makes AIPAC unique is that they're funded by billionaires.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is an American lobbying group that advocates for pro-Israel policies in Washington, D.C..
BARACK OBAMA, 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the United States, our support for Israel is bipartisan, and that is how it should stay.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): For decades, politicians on both sides of the aisle have engaged with AIPAC and spoken at its annual conference in Washington.
[20:45:05]
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The largest AIPAC gathering in history. And I feel like I am among family.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In Michigan the group has spent upwards of $30 million against Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who has been critical of the Israeli government and their actions in Gaza. But in parts of the Democratic Party, AIPAC is now deeply unpopular.
MANDANI: Now is the time of monsters. These monsters take many forms in AIPAC for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu's wars.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Like other groups, they fund campaigns supporting and opposing candidates. Critics of politicians like Mamdani say that the singling out of AIPAC is antisemitic.
GREENBLATT: Something has happened when elected officials like our mayor in this city gaslights Jews, calling AIPAC and the people who support it monsters?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Cori Bush lost her seat in Congress in 2024. She blames AIPAC. CORI BUSH, FORMER MISSOURI REPRESENTATIVE: That was a coordinated
effort Because I was speaking about keeping our money here in this country and not bombing babies in another country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another anti-Israel member of Congress, Cori Bush.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): More than $7 million was spent to oppose Bush in 2024, a historically high amount for a congressional primary race.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: So-called Squad member faced a fierce primary challenge from Democratic opponent Wesley Bell. That's after his campaign saw an influx of cash from the Israel aligned super PAC, AIPAC.
BUSH: The ads never say Israel, Palestine and Gaza. The ad said Cori is not a good Democrat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bush was good at getting headlines, but bad at actually accomplishing anything.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): More than 70 percent of the spending against her was by a super PAC affiliated with AIPAC. Now Bush is running to win her own seat back with support from people like Piker.
PIKER: The second most expensive congressional primary. That's what it took for Israel to subvert the democratic process.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): While activist like Piker puts the issue of Israel front and center in his campaigning, David Hogg's message is squarely focused on getting dark, special interest money out of politics.
HOGG: There is no way of taking corporate money and just not being in bed with those special interests, right? And rejecting the influence of AIPAC.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But he too brings up AIPAC.
HOGG: Let me tell you a story. When I first started working in D.C., when I went from working on the outside of politics in the advocacy world, to then working on the inside, one of the first things that I was told when I got here is, do not talk about AIPAC. Do not mention them. Do not think about them. Don't dare go against them.
And the thing that was striking to me about that was how eerily similar that sounded to what I remember hearing about the NRA after Parkland, where people said to me, you know, they're too powerful. You guys are just a bunch of kids. You know, what happened at your high school is horrible. But you don't understand. This is the NRA. Nobody's ever going to take them on.
But we did. And we won. And we made that organization go from standing for the National Rifle Association to standing for not relevant anymore.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes, I think a lot of people watching this to hear you, a Parkland survivor, talk about AIPAC in the same breath as NRA will be surprising.
HOGG: It shouldn't be. Both are getting kids killed. And I don't draw a line between whether it's kids in Parkland, kids on any street in America, in community, or if it's kids in Palestine. It's not OK.
O'SULLIVAN: When you first got here to D.C. and you were told, whatever you do, don't talk about AIPAC, don't come after AIPAC, big pharma puts a lot of money into this town. Big oil, whatever. Why do you think it was AIPAC you were told to stay quiet about more so than anything else?
HOGG: There are a few groups that had the winning streak that AIPAC had. That's reality. What people fear more than anything are people that they perceive to be strong winners. That can be decisive in elections.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): AIPAC did not make anyone available for an interview for this program. In a statement, AIPAC called Hogg's comments despicable and disgusting. AIPAC said it is proud to support, quote, "principled Democrats who share our commitment to a partnership that is integral to America's national security." It also pointed out that many Democrats it supports are winning their primaries. But what does all of this mean for the midterms?
[20:50:02]
COWAN: Moderate Democrats are the only ones who have delivered the House and the White House since Trump came on the scene in 2015.
O'SULLIVAN: But in the Trump era, those centrist Democrats have lost the White House twice and only won at once.
COWAN: True. That's true.
PIKER: Today is the most popular Israel will be going forward. Tomorrow Israel will be less popular than it is today. And yesterday, Israel was more popular than it was today. It's done.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JON LOVETT, POD SAVE AMERICA: If we really are going to take on a rising authoritarian right, that is going to be about having as many people as part of that movement as possible, even if that makes you uncomfortable.
[20:55:02]
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Jon Lovett, Jon Favreau, and Tommy Vietor all worked for President Barack Obama and now host a hugely popular "Pod Save America" podcast. They say Democrats need to talk to everyone, including each other.
Jon, you interviewed Hasan Piker, right?
FAVREAU: You've heard about that.
(LAUGHTER)
O'SULLIVAN: You got a lot of shit even for talking to him. Clearly, you don't buy into the idea that somebody like Hasan Piker should not be given a platform.
VIETOR: How dare you platform someone with a huge platform.
FAVREAU: Right. Yes. Whether you like this or not Hasan has a lot of people who listen to him. I don't want to start going down the path even as we head into 2028, where I say, all right, if you're not with me on this issue, I don't want to listen to you. We had interviewed him before. And it wasn't a big deal before. I think it's sort of what we started this to do, which was to have conversations with people who are involved in politics and let the audience decide what to make of that.
VIETOR: I think the Democratic Party has got to move away from this dumb debate about platforming. Let reasonable adults kind of sort out what they think about it. Mostly, I think it did enormous harm to the Democratic Party, to Democratic candidates, that we refuse to go on other people's shows out of purity test.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The roof is collapsing on the Democratic Party establishment tonight.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): With insurgent campaigns ousting long-term incumbent Democrats, this primary faceoff is what some are calling the Democrats' civil war.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A growing divide over Israel is reshaping politics on the left.
BILL MAHER, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER" HOST: Democratic socialists in New York are crazy, like, outright really crazy.
MAMDANI: Last June, it was not the end. It was the beginning.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Both sides claim their candidates will be more electable in November.
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I want to talk about this idea of electability. Let me be clear. The last people who have any right to lecture us about electability are the establishment who lost to Donald Trump twice. I don't want to hear it.
O'SULLIVAN: Is the Democrat party having its Tea Party Movement to move to the left?
FAVREAU: Even beyond Trump and before Trump, inequality in this country was, you know, expanding at a rapid clip. And there's a lot of people in both parties and across all ideologies who are really pissed off about it. And we need candidates who are not necessarily tied to the establishment, but who are outsiders, whether they're to the left or the center left, who are going to try to challenge the status quo.
VIETOR: I think there's a debate about what voters want and what makes a candidate electable. Is it because you're a populist you're relentlessly focused on economic issues? You're maybe not a lawyer or, you know, a traditional politician, but you're someone new that feels more authentic, or there's others who think like, no, actually, what we need is to sand down some of the edges, like walk back some of the more extreme, or furthest left positions the party has taken and run more moderate candidates.
The battle for the future of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party is not going to play out like it used to.
EL-SAYED: Money out of politics. Money in your pocket and Medicare for all.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The battle that will help set the stage for the 2028 presidential primaries.
HALEY STEVENS (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: Michiganders need someone who stays focused through the noise and gets the job done.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Issues like affordability, healthcare, corporate influence, and of course, Israel will play a big role.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: More than half of House Democrats voted to end U.S. military funding for Israel.
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: This is a huge jump in numbers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to continue to be a prescient issue and something that Democrats cannot ignore.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The big question for both wings of the party is whether they can come together after their primaries and back their party's nominees.
CARVILLE: I have one simple philosophy. Winning is everything, stupid.
COWAN: The burden is on the left to show why their toxic politics could work anywhere outside of blue places. And to date, they have literally failed in that test.
SANDERS: This is a country that belongs to the working families of America and not just a handful of billionaires.
HOGG: For too long, we've had cowards in our government that have been pushed around by the government of Israel, that have been pushed around by the super PAC spending. We are in an environment where people are so sick and tired of the status quo. That's the bigger story here.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): David Hogg says ultimately he will support all Democratic candidates as they go against Republicans. But there was one person I wasn't so sure about.
Will you endorse the 2028 candidates if they are pro-Israel in a way that you don't like? If you ultimately are about defeating fascism in this country as you describe it? Surely shouldn't you get on board with whoever the main candidate is?
PIKER: Luckily, I don't think I'll have to make that calculation at all because there is zero percent chance that whoever the elected Democrat is that wins the primary will be pro-Israel in any way, shape or form. You'll see.
