Popular left-leaning political streamer Hasan Piker, also known as HasanAbi, was suspended from Twitch on Monday, just days after making controversial remarks about Florida Senator Rick Scott.
"If you cared about Medicare fraud, or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott, okay?" Piker said on Feb. 28 while discussing a clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson speaking to CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
Piker, who boasts 2.8 million followers on Twitch and another 1.5 million on YouTube—where his account remains active—has not disclosed the duration of his suspension. Visitors to his Twitch page are met with a message stating that his account is "temporarily unavailable due to a violation of Twitch's Community Guidelines or Terms of Service."
Clarifying his comments, Piker later added: "The reason why I'm saying if you care about Medicare or Medicaid fraud you'd kill Rick Scott — and not make him a prominent part of the Republican party — is because he, to this day, is still, also known as committing the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history."
Piker was referring to Columbia/HCA, the healthcare company Scott founded, which was fined $1.7 billion for defrauding federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid in the 1990s.
Scott has maintained that he was unfairly targeted. "By the way, I saw this. It happened to me," Scott said last year. "I fought Hillarycare, and guess what happened when I fought Hillarycare? Justice came after me and attacked me and my company."
Following the Twitch suspension, Piker took to X (formerly Twitter), sarcastically stating that next time he would call for "MAX PUNISHMENT" for Scott.
Past Controversies and Political Stances
Piker, known for his outspoken progressive views, was recently profiled by Slate, which described him as "pro–Palestinian liberation, pro-immigrant, pro-trans, pro-choice, and unapologetically himself." The profile also noted accusations of antisemitism against him, which he has strongly denied.
Piker has been a vocal critic of Israel following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, calling Israel a country based on an "ethno-nationalist, supremacist ideology." He recently helped raise over $100,000 for a fundraiser linked to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which provides aid to Gazans.
This is not Piker's first controversy on Twitch. In 2019, he sparked backlash for saying, "America deserved 9/11, dude. F— it, I'm saying it."
