Hasan Piker stated that conservatives and the mainstream media use a double standard when it comes to political speech. According to Piker, while offensive remarks toward Black people, transgender people, and migrants are ignored, insults toward billionaires and Israel result in immediate punishment.
It was stated during the livestream that Piker held this weekend amid online outrage at comedian Dave Chappelle’s joke about murdering conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Piker emphasized that Kirk’s aggressive rhetoric rarely leads to serious consequences because of his close relationship with President Donald Trump.
“That’s how it goes. And sometimes Charlie Kirk could go above and beyond with that violent rhetoric. But because he was a party apparatchik, because he was Trump’s best boy, nobody cared,” Piker said. “Nobody actually took it as the serious demands for violent retribution and racial agitation that it actually was. Because his victims and his targets were also Black and brown people.”
Piker put it as an example of institutionalized racism.
“This is what we mean when we talk about institutionalized white supremacy and white supremacist attitudes,” he said. “As long as you’re going after the vulnerable, as long as you’re going after trans people, as long as you’re going after Black people, undocumented migrants, you can get away with saying whatever the [expletive] you want.”
Kirk, who founded the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, was killed in a shooting incident on Sept. 10, 2025, while giving a speech at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. He was 31. A devoted Trump ally, Kirk became well known after engaging in viral debates with college students. His aggressive rhetoric usually led to protests. Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.
Piker compared the attitude toward Kirk’s rhetoric to the way he treats sharp language about the rich and the powerful.
“But God forbid you talk about billionaires in the same way that a right winger talks about trans people. If you were to do that, if you were to do that, you’d get banned immediately,” Piker said. “God forbid you talk about everyone’s favorite emotional support apartheid state in the way that the president talks about Somalia. You can’t do that. I’m not even saying you should do that.”
The “emotional support apartheid state” was a reference to Israel, which denies allegations of practicing apartheid. In December 2025, Trump faced massive backlash after using a Cabinet meeting to insult Somali immigrants in the United States as “garbage” and stating that he does not want them in the country.
Piker, a very popular political streamer on Twitch (a subsidiary of Amazon), was suspended multiple times. In 2025, Piker received a one-day suspension for the statement that people who care about Medicare fraud would kill Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida; he later apologized for that comment. Piker was suspended once again in January in connection with the stream dedicated to Alex Pretti’s murder. Twitch did not disclose the reason behind the suspension.
“You can’t even criticize these people in positions of power without the entire might of the mainstream media, without the entire might of corporate media coming after you. It’s ridiculous,” Piker said. “That is the double standard that exists. OK? Capital is off limits. Israel is off limits. American foreign policy is off limits. American institutions that we are supposed to revere are off limits.”
Piker added: “So, of course, I expect the right wingers to dance around in this endless hypocrisy because, let’s be real, liberal media also props up this hypocrisy.”
Then, Piker cited a message from one of his viewers named Mukhtar in his chat about the Chappelle’s controversy:
“The same people who kept insisting that comedy is legal again are now furious with Dave Chappelle for making a joke about Charlie Kirk. ‘Ever since that guy, Charlie Kirk, got murdered, and I shouldn’t say this publicly, I feel better.’ Funny how comedy is suddenly not so legal when the joke is about someone they liked.”
Chappelle told the joke on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York as part of the New York Comedy Festival. The video clip, less than one minute long, went viral on social media on Sunday. In it, Chappelle says that being a public speaker is scary before making the joke that made the audience laugh. The clip doesn’t include the whole routine, and Chappelle hasn’t commented on it yet.
Conservative commentators quickly criticized the joke. Rob Henderson, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, was one of the first to condemn the joke, and billionaire Elon Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “‘Shame, shame, shame on Chappelle.'”
The “‘Comedy is legal again'” quote resembles a post Musk made on X after buying Twitter in 2022: “‘Comedy is now legal on Twitter,’ ” and it echoes comments from some comedians that Trump’s 2024 victory allowed them to go further.
Chappelle previously made jokes about Kirk. In a Netflix special released in December 2025, he said that the death of Kirk shocked him as a public speaker while advising not to compare Kirk with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Piker previously made similar statements regarding other jokes. He defended the hosts of the “I’ve Had It” podcast who apologized and lost several sponsors after laughing at the joke about Kirk on their show, saying that conservatives who mocked George Floyd for years have no grounds to complain.
Piker previously faced criticism for the remarks about Kirk. He condemned the killing of Kirk at the time, and he debated Kirk publicly and was going to debate him again before Kirk’s murder. In August, Piker received backlash after singing a mocking meme song, “We Are Charlie Kirk,” at a live performance in San Francisco. A spokesman of Turning Point USA, Andrew Kolvet, described Piker’s performance as “pure, unadulterated evil.” Piker insisted that he was not mocking the murder.
Kirk’s supporters say he willingly sought out debates with ideological opponents. Lauren Chen, a conservative commentator who appeared together with both men at Politicon, wrote on X in August that they were “fiery on stage” but friends afterward.
Trump constantly criticizes Piker, calling him a communist and “a terrible liability” for Democrats. In April, two House members introduced a bipartisan resolution condemning several statements made by Piker, including those about Israel and Hamas.
The suspect in Kirk’s murder, Tyler Robinson, 23, has pleaded not guilty to seven charges, including aggravated murder. Robinson entered the pleas Sept. 1 after 4th District Judge Tony Graf ruled, following a preliminary hearing, that the case will go to trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The case will be heard on Monday in Provo, Utah, likely focusing on the schedule, including whether the trial date can be set. Graf hoped to set the tentative trial schedule at an Oct. 23 hearing but instead scheduled another hearing. Robinson’s lawyers claim they need three years to prepare for the trial, though they think it will take seven months. Prosecutors say that they could be ready by January 2028.
Robinson’s lawyers asked Graf to keep cameras out of Monday’s hearing, citing a social media post where Trump said that “the judge is doing a terrible job.”
