Democratic strategist James Carville called far-left streamer Hasan Piker an “idiot” on Tuesday and told the Democratic Socialists of America to strip “Democratic” from its name, escalating a public fight over who gets to claim the party’s brand.
“There’s two things that I know about Hasan Piker. One, he’s an idiot, and two, he’s not a Democrat. So, I don’t answer for idiots, and I don’t answer for people who are not Democrats,” Carville said on Fox News. “I can’t answer for these left-wing idiots,” he added.
Piker, a self-described socialist who has said he hates America and claimed in 2019 that “America deserved 9/11,” has become a prominent voice on the far left as socialists push for influence inside the Democratic Party. He campaigned in Detroit for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, appearing poolside with El-Sayed at an August 3, 2026, event for content creators supporting the campaign, and later canvassing alongside Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in Michigan’s 13th District.
Carville has gone after Piker before. In August he said he would leave the Democratic Party if Piker “becomes a force,” and claimed an “overwhelming majority” of Democrats agree with him.
“I understand that I’m a Democrat. I’m part of a big coalition, a big tent, and we all have an admission policy. But thank God Hasan Piker doesn’t want in our frat, because we don’t want him.”
Piker has returned the hostility. On a recent stream he mocked Carville and Senator John Fetterman for talking about quitting the party: “We got John Fetterman, James Carville, fantasizing about leaving the party — I’m like, you’re sweetening the deal.” Piker did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
DSA Told to Change Its Name
Carville didn’t stop at Piker. He went after the Democratic Socialists of America directly, arguing the group is riding on a party name it should have no claim to.
“What I would tell a Democratic socialist — ‘If you hate the Democratic brand so much, why use our words? Go call yourself something else. Call yourself the Socialists of America.'”
Carville said DSA positions, including defunding police, don’t reflect where his party stands. “Don’t put the first word in your title ‘Democratic’ because … that’s our party. That’s the party of civil rights. That’s the party of women’s rights. That’s the party of balanced budget. That is the party of prosperity,” he said. “Don’t use our name. Make up your own name.”
Carville has previously said socialists have dragged the Democratic Party’s brand “through the mud,” a fight that’s now playing out directly in Michigan’s Senate primary as El-Sayed courts the DSA-aligned online left in Detroit.
