Some Democrats are now trying to pass Hasan Piker off as a creature of the right, as buyer’s remorse sets in and more of Piker’s extremism is dragged into public view. 

Former DNC communications director Karen Finney spent part of a CNN segment Thursday fending off criticism of the left after Piker gave Axios an interview showcasing just the level of crazy the left has invited into its "Big Tent." For example, Piker claimed the United States is a worse terrorist organization than al-Qaeda and argued that the Middle East would be more stable with a nuclear-armed Iran.

Finney went on to insist that Piker has “no power” and “no authority,” within the Democrat Party, a blatant lie, before adding that “we actually don’t know who his followers actually are.” She then posited that they could be Republicans.

"I also know how the game goes, so if you're on the right, then you say, 'Hey, how come you don't cover the crazies on the left?' I'm just saying," Finney said.

"These people aren't even talking to me. Nobody's talking to me about this," CNN's Jake Tapper said. "We covered this because Alex did this interview, and it made news, and for the reasons that I gave, which is Democrats have this guy campaigning with him."

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"Okay, but Jake, he said all these people, three, four, I think you counted, out of how many candidates total? And this is not a — I guess the thing that I resent is he's not someone that has any power, any authority," Finney said. "I don't know that we could say he has real influence because we actually don't know who his followers actually are. I mean, what do we — some of them could be Republican, some of them could be more right-wing, I mean who knows? You don't know, do you?"

"Yeah, I know that. I know that right-wingers don't like Hasan Piker," the Manhattan Institute's Jesse Arm replied. "I can say that with near certainty."

"You don't know who his listeners are," the DNC communications director replied.

"Sure, he's got a lot of fans in Pakistan," Arm said.

The notion that Piker could be anything other than a creature of the left is laughable. Few on the right harbor that level of open contempt for America, or are foolish enough to argue that a nuclear Iran would somehow stabilize the Middle East. And the few who might entertain such a fantasy are generally libertarians, not conservatives. 

This is little more than buyer’s remorse, plain and simple. The DNC is watching its influence get swept out from beneath it by a new cadre of activist figures such as Piker, whose extremism has found an increasingly receptive audience, particularly among Democratic Socialists of America-aligned politicians such as Zohran Mamdani. The direction of travel became hard to miss after socialists swept several New York City Democrat primaries months ago. A former DNC chair then issued a rather desperate plea for people who are not Democrats to stop using the party’s resources against it. 

The DNC has lost control; that much is clear. The remaining question is whether the DSA can keep riding the Democrat Party vehicle to victories beyond the ones it has already claimed.