Jessica Tarlov delivered a big announcement this week: she is tired of talking about Hasan Piker. Then she talked about him anyway, for several minutes. And, Jessica Tarlov being Jessica Tarlov, she defended him!
If you're sensing a pattern with Democrat commentators and this particular streamer, you're paying attention.
Thursday on The Five, Tarlov spent the segment complaining about how much coverage Piker gets. "It is exhausting, it is difficult," she said. She said she understood why Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) wanted Republicans to stop using Piker to “divide Democrats.” Dingell made the same "done talking about him" pitch Wednesday at a Michigan town hall with Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), then brought Piker up herself before she finished her opening remarks.
Tarlov's version of "done talking about him" looked about the same, but unlike Dingell, who tried to put distance between Piker’s views and her own, Tarlov spent some time trying to prove just how much of a good guy Piker really is. She insisted the majority of what Piker discusses on his streams is "things like universal health care and housing," and claimed the criticism is built on cherry-picked clips of "the Marxism, that China is so great." Of those views, she added, "I don't agree with an ounce of that."
JESSICA TARLOV DEFENDS HASAN PIKER! "We are talking about him too much... It is exhausting... Just turn away from Hasan Piker, we don't talk about him anymore." Jesse Watters to Jessica: "This is not a problem for you, this IS you! You can't distance yourself from him!" #TheFive pic.twitter.com/XHsJu8MyM0
— Diamond Joe (@ItsDiamondJoe) August 27, 2026
Let’s actually get to the real meat of this issue here.
Dingell and plenty of others in the Democrat Party have clearly figured out (probably from internal polling nobody outside the party will ever see) that Hasan Piker is politically toxic outside the Democrat base. Between the antisemitism, the anti-Americanism, the open socialism, and the general disdain for this country, there’s already little good to say about the man. The thing is, Piker is a fairly accurate reflection of what the Democrat Party's base actually believes. That's exactly what makes Tarlov's defense so telling.
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When Tarlov complains that coverage of Piker is excessive, then spends her airtime defending him, she gives the game away. Tarlov knows Piker is a liability for Democrats heading into the midterms. She said as much herself. But when push came to shove, her instinct was to defend his politics rather than let the criticism stand. All the antisemitism and socialism stuff? Oh, that’s just a small part of what he’s saying. He wants healthcare for all, so who cares if he’s a bigot?
Anyone who has watched Tarlov before knows exactly what’s going on here. She ran the same play defending Graham Platner, Mr. Nazi Tattoo himself. Tarlov was basically defending him and his candidacy until the very end, even after the New York Times report of his domestic assault history. As far as she was concerned, Platner was just a flawed candidate, and she made it clear she'd still take him over Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) because she agreed with his politics. For Tarlov, policy alignment apparently outweighs just about everything else. The red line was somewhere between domestic abuse and sexual assault.
The left tolerated Graham Platner's sordid past and Hasan Piker's radicalism right up until they threatened to cost Democrats an election. Winning is what actually matters. Jessica Tarlov's defense of Hasan Piker this week is just the latest proof of that.
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