{"id":24246,"date":"2026-08-01T14:33:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T09:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=24246"},"modified":"2026-08-01T14:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T09:33:13","slug":"hasan-piker-straight-up-tells-cnn-its-harder-for-progressives-to-win-primaries-than-the-general-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=24246","title":{"rendered":"Hasan Piker Straight Up Tells CNN Its Harder For Progressives to Win Primaries Than the General Election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5747303\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5747303\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5747303\" src=\"https:\/\/am14.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/07\/piker-1.jpg\" alt=\"Hasan Piker\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-5747303\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Screenshot via CNN<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Highly controversial progressive streamer <strong>Hasan Piker<\/strong> told CNN he truly believes that Democratic Socialist candidates&#8217; greatest challenge is winning Democratic Party primaries, not general elections.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tag\/hasan-piker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Piker&#8217;s<\/a> take flies in the face of conventional political wisdom that the more extreme candidates to emerge from primaries often benefit the other party in the general election.<\/p>\n<p>CNN Senior Correspondent <strong>Donie O&#8217;Sullivan<\/strong> spoke to Piker for his special titled, &#8220;The Left Insurgency.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think these guys have failed so publicly and so spectacularly that it has caused people to seek out alternatives,&#8221; Piker told O&#8217;Sullivan in a preview clip released ahead of the program&#8217;s Sunday debut.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I see challenges from the, quote, &#8216;progressive left,&#8217; unquote. And these people are too hard-headed to know that they&#8217;re not popular. People don&#8217;t like them. They don&#8217;t win elections. They never run against Republicans \u2014 they just run against other Democrats. And their only message is, &#8216;We&#8217;re gonna blow everything up,&#8217;&#8221;<strong> James Carville<\/strong> then says in a clip as O&#8217;Sullivan notes to Piker, &#8220;Carville says this is all going to implode at the general election.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed_container\" id=\"e79ad2933fc54d76cdbba0d10760f0fb\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hasanthehun?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@hasanthehun<\/a> v. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JamesCarville?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@JamesCarville<\/a>  on the future of the Democratic Party. <\/p>\n<p>Watch: The Left Insurgency, 8p ET, Sunday on <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@CNN<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xmeQ6KfQZ1\">pic.twitter.com\/xmeQ6KfQZ1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donie O&#039;Sullivan (@donie) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/donie\/status\/2082857315812700320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 30, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah, as opposed to previous neoliberal Democratic candidacies that have been spectacular successes so far \u2014 <strong>Hillary Rodham Clinton<\/strong> in 2016 and <strong>Kamala Harris<\/strong> in 2024. There are a lot of people who are just like, &#8220;This is not working.&#8221; The cost of living crisis is completely out of control. Democrats haven&#8217;t done anything about it. Republicans haven&#8217;t done anything about it. There has to be a different alternative,&#8221; Piker insists.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have one simple philosophy about politics: winning is everything, stupid. Let&#8217;s think of somebody \u2014 <strong>Bernie Sanders.<\/strong> Bernie Sanders ran for president twice, you know what he did twice, he lost by a lot,&#8221; Carville says in another added in the clip.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because for progressives, getting out of the primary is a far more difficult battle than winning in the general. This is our theory. The reason for that is because Republicans don&#8217;t have a vision for change. Socialists do,&#8221; Piker is then shown arguing.<\/p>\n<p>Piker also raised eyebrows in the clips circulated ahead of the interview for <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BonillaJL\/status\/2083028365196304478\">claiming<\/a> there is a &#8220;zero chance&#8221; that the 2028 Democratic Party presidential nominee will be pro-Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Piker has long been a controversial figure on the left for his boosting of terror groups like Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, as well as for saying the U.S. &#8220;deserved&#8221; 9\/11. In more recent months, Piker has toured China and Cuba while praising their autocratic Communist governments. While in China, Piker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/hasan-piker-declares-i-dont-have-any-patriotism-for-america-while-streaming-from-tiananmen-square\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declared<\/a> he had no patriotism for the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the clip above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/tv\/hasan-piker-straight-up-tells-cnn-its-harder-for-progressives-to-win-primaries-than-the-general-election\/\">Hasan Piker Straight Up Tells CNN Its Harder For Progressives to Win Primaries Than the General Election<\/a> first appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\">Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Screenshot via CNN Highly controversial progressive streamer Hasan Piker told CNN he truly believes that Democratic Socialist candidates&#8217; greatest challenge is winning Democratic Party primaries, not general elections. Piker&#8217;s take flies in the face of conventional political wisdom that the more extreme candidates to emerge from primaries often benefit the other party in the general&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/am14.mediaite.com\/med\/cnt\/uploads\/2026\/07\/piker-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}