Rahm Emanuel, the veteran Democratic operative and former mayor of Chicago who is now mulling a presidential bid in 2028, said he would go on Hasan Piker’s Twitch show to give the antisemitic streamer “a lesson in what he is perpetuating and the advocacy and the rhetoric of what he’s doing.”

“I can give him a two-by-four upside his head because of what he said,” Emanuel said in a CNN interview on Monday, referring to recent comments in which Piker had claimed that Jews who support Israel are inviting violence against themselves.

Emanuel’s characteristically tough-talking rhetoric came months after he confirmed to Politico in March that he was open to appearing on Piker’s show, with a spokesperson saying at the time he “is always willing to have difficult conversations with anyone about the future of the country, and to tell people he disagrees with why they’re wrong.”

Piker’s relationship to the party has emerged as a Democratic flashpoint, most notably in Michigan’s heated Senate race, where the Democratic nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, has recently sought to distance his campaign from the controversial streamer as he has faced widespread backlash over his comments about pro-Israel Jews.

“What he said the other day, I think I’m glad he said it,” Emanuel said of Piker, “because it’s out front that somehow we invited the violence against ourselves.”

Emanuel, who is Jewish, said Piker “needs to be challenged” over such claims. “Anybody associated with that rhetoric needs to disassociate with them, because if it was any other group in America — any other group — people would be worked up and in a tizzy, appropriately.”

“Now, if this was any other constituency, the party would deal with this,” he added in the interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Monday. “But everybody seems to be like, ‘Oh, this is OK, whatever.’ You also have a person who thinks 9/11 is OK,” a reference to Piker’s assertion that America deserved 9/11, comments the streamer has since said used “imprecise” language.

Though many Democrats have rejected Piker, others have defended the streamer or downplayed his ties to the party, calling such debates a distraction or a Republican talking point. 

But in a moment of rising antisemitism in both parties, Emanuel said Democrats are discrediting themselves if they cannot unanimously condemn Piker for his offensive statements. “If I can’t say it about him, you clearly can’t attack people who go around chanting ‘the Jews will not replace us,’ and have a president of the United States saying ‘there are good people on both sides,’” he argued, alluding to the violent neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

“My point is we need to deal with this out front,” Emanuel said, adding: “But everybody seems to get tongue-tied when it comes to antisemitism, and that to me is unacceptable.”

Despite his words of warning, Emanuel bristled at the suggestion that Jewish Democrats feel alienated within a party they have long called home, saying the surge of antisemitism transcends traditional partisan boundaries.

“It’s not a party problem,” he explained, citing FBI statistics showing Jews are the most-targeted group for religion-based hate crimes. “If you segregate it as somehow ‘this is political or partisan,’ you’re actually allowing it a pass.”

Even as he has grown more openly skeptical of Israel in recent months, Emanuel, a former chief of staff in the Obama administration, has increasingly criticized his party’s far-left flank. 

In other recent interviews, for instance, he has said that the ascendant Democratic Socialists of America, which has promoted candidates accused of spreading antisemitism, is not a part of the Democratic Party.

“The Democratic Party is not open to being taken over,” he said on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend.