Socialist streamer Hasan Piker spent several days this week trading barbs on X with a user whose pregnant mother escaped the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 — an exchange that featured repeated crude references to the user’s father’s anatomy and drew condemnation even from some figures on the left, according to The Daily Wire.
The dispute began after the X user, who posts under the handle @LinkofSunshine and goes by Basil, shared their mother’s survival story in a September 11 post marking the attack’s 25th anniversary.
“25 years ago, my mom was pregnant with me in the World Trade Center,” Basil wrote. “Over the loudspeaker, there were announcements to stay seated. Thankfully, almost everyone at her company decided to evacuate down the stairs instead.”
A Story of Survival — and a Sudden Reply
Basil went on to describe their mother escaping the building and watching from the ground as the towers came down, leaving her “covered in soot and dust.” The user also recounted how a New Jersey resident used a personal boat to ferry people from Battery Park across the Hudson River, and noted that Americans appeared to be observing the 25th anniversary more seriously than they had in prior years.
Piker’s response reportedly attacked Basil’s age while arguing that the real legacy of the attacks was the Global War on Terror that followed.
“You are 24 years old,” Piker wrote, according to the outlet. “Last time americans [sic] were whipped up into a frenzy over muslims [sic] like this you were protein in your fathers ballsack.”
In the same message, he added: “Millions of people were slaughtered. The GWOT is largely credited with why americas [sic] standard of living diminished. We forgot THAT lesson.”
Piker has previously said that America “deserved” the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, a remark that has followed him for years.
Deletion, Screenshot, Return
Basil shared a screenshot of the reply after Piker deleted it, and Piker came back with a second reference to Basil’s father — this time walking the insult back while insisting his broader argument stood.
“I never blocked you, and i deleted it since i found out you were not protein in your fathers ballsack, but instead in your mothers womb,” Piker wrote. “Point still stands about gwot and subsequent cynical usage of the horrors of 9/11.”
He followed up by extending a measure of goodwill toward Basil’s mother while pressing his critique of post-9/11 policy.
“Glad your mother made it out. i don’t think you disagree w what i’m saying about how we eroded civil liberties/ waged endless costly and bloody wars since 9/11,” he added.
Basil’s original account of the day — that announcements urged workers to stay seated but nearly an entire company chose to walk down the stairs anyway — tracks with well-documented accounts of the confusion inside the towers that morning, when public-address instructions kept many workers at their desks until some chose to leave on their own.
Backlash From Across the Spectrum
The back-and-forth drew sharp criticism, including from Democratic strategist Yemisi Egbewole, who zeroed in on Piker’s word choice rather than his politics.
“The repeat mentions of his dad’s ballsack is really weird, by the way,” she said.
The episode is the latest in a long pattern for Piker, a prominent figure in the online left whose streams and posts frequently generate viral controversy. He rose to prominence as a fixture on the progressive streaming platform Twitch, where he built one of the largest audiences in political livestreaming, and he has repeatedly drawn attention for inflammatory commentary — often followed by defenses that his critics are misreading his broader point.
That pattern held here: even as the personal insults dominated screenshots circulating online, Piker’s stated case concerned the costs of the wars and security apparatus that followed the attacks. Critics, meanwhile, argued that the framing of his initial reply — aimed at someone recounting a family’s near-miss — undercut whatever argument he was making.
The exchange also landed days after the anniversary itself, stretching the dispute across multiple days — a timeline Basil documented by posting the deleted reply’s screenshot, prompting Piker’s second message and closing concession that he was “glad” the mother survived.
Neither Piker nor Basil immediately responded to further comment, and the spat appears to have quieted as of Wednesday. For Basil, the anniversary post that started it all remains pinned in the replies: a short, plain account of a mother who walked down the stairs with her colleagues and made it out before the towers fell.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/hasan-piker-spends-days-after-9-11-fighting-with-a-survivor-on-x