Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, expressed disagreement on Thursday with comments by Hasan Piker, a far-left streamer who has said “America deserved 9/11,” after several months in which the state assembly member had declined to condemn such rhetoric.

“I find the comments that Hasan made on 9/11 to be objectionable and reprehensible,” Mamdani said during the first general election debate on Thursday night, where he traded barbs with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is trailing in the polls as he mounts an independent run following his primary loss to Mamdani in June.

Still, Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, defended his decision to appear on Piker’s show for an extensive interview during the primary — even as the streamer has otherwise frequently stirred controversy for using antisemitic rhetoric in his commentary on Israel and Jewish issues. 

“I also think that part of the reason why Democrats are in the situation that we are in, of being a permanent minority in this country, is we are looking only to speak to journalists and streamers and Americans with whom we agree on every single thing that they say,” Mamdani argued, while making no mention of Piker’s antisemitic comments. “We need to take the case to every person, and I am happy to do that.”

Piker has faced criticism for justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and forcefully denying some of the terror group’s atrocities — including widespread reports of sexual violence. In one notable stream last year, Piker said “it doesn’t matter if rapes f***ing happened on Oct. 7,” while adding that “the Palestinian resistance is not perfect.” He has also described Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and compared Zionists to Nazis, among other slurs seen as antisemitic.

Elsewhere during the debate, Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel who was arrested in October 2023 during a ceasefire demonstration outside the Brooklyn home of then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), declined to confirm that he would not participate in protests if he is elected mayor. “The important thing is to lead from City Hall,” Mamdani said. “That’s what I’ll be doing.”

Mamdani had faced intense backlash before the debate for comments during a Fox News interview released on Wednesday in which he avoided directly answering a question about whether Hamas should disarm and relinquish its leadership role in Gaza. He clarified at the debate that Hamas, as well as “all parties,” “should lay down” their arms but did not comment on its future role in the conflict.  

“I’m proud to be one of the first elected officials in the state who called for a ceasefire, and calling for a ceasefire means ceasing fire,” Mamdani said. “That means all parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons. And the reason that we call for that is not only for the end of the genocide, but also an unimpeded access of humanitarian aid.”

He added that “we also have to ensure that [the ceasefire] addresses the conditions that preceded this, conditions like occupation, like the siege and apartheid, and that is what I’m hopeful for.”

Mamdani, who has seen mixed results in his continued outreach to the Jewish community, also once again refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada” — even as he reiterated that it “evokes many painful memories” for Jewish voters and reiterated he will “discourage” its usage.

Hasan Piker, the far-left streamer who frequently stirs controversy for using antisemitic rhetoric in his commentary on Israel and Jewish issues, will join a roundtable discussion next month hosted by The New Yorker Festival, the publication announced on Wednesday in a full lineup of events.

The conversation on Oct. 26, which will focus on “how the internet has reshaped political life” and its implications “for the future of democracy,” will also feature Saagar Enjeti, a right-wing populist pundit who co-hosts the “Breaking Points” podcast. It will be moderated by Andrew Marantz, a staff writer for The New Yorker, who published a feature story last March about Piker’s popularity among an audience of young, male voters who have recently gravitated to the right.

Piker, whose videos on Twitch and YouTube reach millions of viewers, has faced criticism for justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, while forcefully denying some of the terror group’s atrocities — such as widespread reports of sexual violence that he has dismissed as “rape fantasies” and “hallucinations.”

In one stream last year, Piker, 34, argued that “it doesn’t matter if rapes f***ing happened on Oct. 7 — like that doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much,” adding that “the Palestinian resistance is not perfect.”

He has also described Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” called a Jewish man a “bloodthirsty, violent pig dog” and compared Zionists to Nazis, among other slurs seen as antisemitic.   

His festival appearance drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, which denounced The New Yorker’s “decision to platform Piker” as “the latest example of mainstream media normalizing his brand of antisemitism and anti-Zionism.”

The streamer’s “toxic and extreme rhetoric opposing Zionism and the Jewish state normalizes antisemitism, reinforces bigotry and launders terror — and it has no place at a conference devoted to prominent influencers,” an ADL spokesperson told Jewish Insider on Wednesday, arguing that Piker’s “extreme statements” on a range of topics “should permanently disqualify him from appearing at any major media festival.”

“His appearing at a festival alongside such notables as Salman Rushdie, who lived for decades under threat of death from the Iranian regime, is deeply ironic, considering that Iran supports Hezbollah and the Houthis, two groups that Piker has openly admired and celebrated,” the spokesperson added, referring to the British-Indian writer who is among several prominent guests now scheduled to join the event next month.  

A spokesperson for The New Yorker declined to comment when reached by JI on Wednesday. 

In his extensive online monologues, Piker has notably defended the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, compared the Houthis in Yemen to the hero of an anime show and characterized the Oct. 7 attacks as an inevitable response to “violent means of maintaining an apartheid,” among other extreme comments.

Piker, a fierce opponent of Israel’s right to exist, has more recently equated liberal Zionism with Nazism, according to a video of his remarks posted to social media last month.

“Zionism is an exterminationist ideology built around ethno-religious supremacist values,” he said in a conversation with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) at the Democratic Socialists of America’s convention earlier this month. “So when people say, like, ‘Oh, well, I’m a liberal Zionist, I want there to be a Jewish ethno-state,’ I’m like, OK, what do you mean? It’s like saying you’re like a liberal Nazi. Like, you want an Aryan majority ethno-state?”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has accused Piker of engaging in “textbook antisemitism” and called on Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, to cut ties with the streamer, describing his comments as a leading contributor to “an explosion of Jew-hatred on social media” in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

Piker has rejected allegations of antisemitism, while insisting his views have been misconstrued as opposition to Jewish people rather than the Israeli government, a claim his critics have interpreted as disingenuous.

The streamer has otherwise mocked widespread concerns about rising global antisemitism — calling the issue a distraction from Israel’s military conduct in Gaza.

But even as he has faced backlash for promoting antisemitic rhetoric, Piker has continued to draw friendly profiles in mainstream outlets such as The New York Times and GQ magazine, which is owned by The New Yorker’s parent company, Condé Nast. He has also hosted several high-profile lawmakers on his streaming platform, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA).

Piker did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about his planned comments for the roundtable next month. 

The New Yorker Festival, an annual multiday event in New York City featuring well-known figures in arts, media and politics, previously faced backlash in 2018 for inviting Steve Bannon, a former White House chief strategist to President Donald Trump who now hosts a popular MAGA-world podcast, to headline a conversation with the magazine’s editor, David Remnick.

Following major dropouts from participants who protested Bannon’s appearance at the festival — as well as internal objections raised by the magazine’s employees — Remnick announced he had decided to pull the invitation, saying that he did not “want well-meaning readers and staff members to think” that he had “ignored their concerns” regarding the controversial Trump ally.