Left-wing streamer walks back comment about killing Rick Scott following Twitch suspension
Left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker has walked back remarks urging Republicans to "kill" Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., after getting suspended from Twitch, a popular video live-streaming service.
Piker's statement came during a stream in which he reacted to an interview with House Speaker Mike Johnson, who discussed measures to "carve out" waste, fraud and abuse within Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
During the stream, Piker insisted that fraud primarily comes from providers, not recipients of government programs.
"They're not tackling providers; they're not actually going after false billing. They are trying to cut recipients. [Fraud] is not happening at the point of recipient. If you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott," he said.
Socialist Twitch Star Hasan Piker Raises $1 Million For Palestinian Aid
The streamer noted that Columbia/HCA was fined over $1.7 billion when Scott was CEO of the healthcare company following an investigation into its "Medicare billing."
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Twitch did not provide a specific reason for the suspension, although the timing of the violation and Piker's ensuing X posts suggest that the above comments pushed the platform to act.
This is Piker's fifth Twitch suspension.
On Monday afternoon, Piker apologized, telling his social media followers, "I'm sorry!"
"I'll choose my words carefully next time and say, 'if Mike Johnson cares abt [sic] medicare fraud (since he wants to cut 800m from Medicaid/Medicare) he'd call for MAX PUNISHMENT for current fl gop senator/former gov Rick Scott- who has done the most Medicare fraud in us history!'" he continued.
Five minutes later, Piker addressed his critics.
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"Big shout out to the right-wing free speech lovers who took time out of their day screaming about DEI & immigrants, to cry abt [sic] this!" he wrote on X.
Hasan and Twitch didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and other Democrats have sat down with Piker, who was praised in December by Kamala Harris' former deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty.
"We need a whole thriving ecosystem," Flaherty told Semafor following Harris' election loss. "It's not just Pod Save America, though I think we should have more of them. It's not just Hasan Piker. We should have more Hasan Pikers. It's also the cultural creators, the folks who are one rung out who influence the nonpartisan audience. Those things all need to happen together."
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Piker, who has a following on Twitch of over 2.8 million, and who previously raised more than $1 million for Palestinian aid, has used his platform with millions of followers to downplay and justify terrorist attacks such as Oct. 7 and 9/11 as acts of resistance in recent years.
During a 2019 livestream, Piker praised the "brave f---ing soldier" who wounded conservative U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, while he was deployed to Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL, asking, "Didn't he go to war and, like, literally lose his eye because some mujahideen, a brave f---ing soldier, f---ed his eyehole with their d---?"
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He went on to say that "America deserved 9/11, I'm saying it," before later walking it back and saying it was "inappropriate."
Piker raised $100k for charity on Saturday alongside the creators of "No Other Land," a film co-directed by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers.
The film won the Oscar for Best Documentary the following day.
Fox News' Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.Original article source: Left-wing streamer walks back comment about killing Rick Scott following Twitch suspension
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That's clearly not the same as saying Americans will face a 64% (or 68%) tax increase. And this wasn't a one-time slip of the tongue by the president.
