Streamer who said Rick Scott should be ‘killed’ invited to Yale as lawmaker demands funding cut
A Senate Republican wants federal funding revoked from Yale for a forthcoming speech from a controversial streamer who once called for him to be "killed."
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., blasted an upcoming event at the Ivy League university featuring Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker, who has become a flashpoint for Democrats and fodder for conservatives because of his views and alignment with the far-left of the party.
Piker, who has come under fire for his previous comments that "America deserved 9/11" and for excusing sexual violence committed on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel, is set to appear at the Yale Political Union for an event dubbed "Resolved: End the American Empire" Tuesday.
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"This is WILD," Scott said on X. "I spoke at the Yale Political Union last year on why we need to buy made in America products. Now, they are hosting a guy who said I should be killed."
"Yale receives billions from the federal government — President Trump and Congress need to IMMEDIATELY revoke it," he continued. "An elite private university that hosts an antisemite who says a Senator should be killed, capitalists should be killed, and the U.S. deserved 9/11, shouldn’t get ONE CENT from taxpayers."
The Yale Political Union did not respond to a request for comment on Scott's push to nix funding for the university.
Scott and Piker have had a run-in, indirectly, before.
When Republicans were crafting President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" in 2025, Piker said during a stream — in reaction to comments from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., that Republicans were targeting Medicaid fraud — that Scott should be killed.
"The reason why I'm saying, if you cared about Medicare or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott is because — 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 said.
At the time, Republicans were trying to include several provisions in the budget reconciliation process that they pitched as reforms to Medicaid designed to cut costs and root out fraud in the system.
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A provider rate crackdown; denying states Medicaid funding for having illegal immigrants on the benefit rolls; preventing illegal immigrants from participating in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); and preventing Medicaid and CHIP funding from going toward gender-affirming care were all on the table.
However, those provisions were gutted from the bill for not complying with the strict guardrails that dictate the reconciliation process. Still, Republicans were able to include stringent work requirements for the healthcare program.
Scott’s office didn’t comment on Piker’s Medicare fraud accusation but told Fox News Digital that "no Democrat elected official calls this guy out and the press seems to give all the Democrats a pass for actively campaigning with him."
Piker's management team and Yale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.