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Rogers Rips El-Sayed Over Foreign Ties As Senate Debate Turns Personal
Tempers flared Thursday night as Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers clashed over the Iran war, the economy, and El-Sayed’s foreign ties in a fiery Michigan Senate debate.
Rogers came out swinging, calling El-Sayed “the best con I’ve ever seen” and blasting him for refusing to issue a statement condemning Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks on their third anniversary.
“This is why you should get absolutely angry,” Rogers said during the debate, hosted by NBC affiliate WOOD. “He could not bring himself to even acknowledge the pain, the terrorism, the rape, the murders, cutting off of women’s breasts, putting children in ovens, and killing them in front of their families!”
El-Sayed insisted he had condemned the attacks but said he would not turn the issue into what he called “political theater.”
“So I’m so sorry, but like, I just, I’m not somebody who tries to make political theater out of other people’s pain,” El-Sayed said, drawing a sharp rebuke from Rogers.
“Your whole campaign is political theater,” Rogers shot back. “Including putting on a white jacket and calling yourself a doctor.”
The exchange grew more contentious when El-Sayed zeroed in on Rogers’ Florida home, sparking a clash over the candidates’ real estate portfolios.
“He can’t condemn a terrorist act that happened on our soil in the state of Michigan,” Rogers said. “This guy can’t condemn Hamas. He can’t condemn the Muslim Brotherhood. He says his home is Egypt.”
“Your home is in Florida, my home is in Michigan,” El-Sayed countered.
Rogers fired back that El-Sayed owns a home in the United Arab Emirates.
“At least Florida is in the United States,” Rogers said.
“Not in Michigan, my guy,” El-Sayed replied.
In another contentious exchange, El-Sayed refused to say whether Israel or Iran posed the greater threat to the United States, dismissing the question as a “ridiculous hypothetical” and declaring, “I don’t want to be pushed into war by Israel.”
In a favorable political climate for Democrats, Abdul El-Sayed should cruise to victory in November. But his inflammatory foreign policy views and connections to extremists have alienated some of the party’s core constituencies and independents. El-Sayed reportedly told communist streamer Hasan Piker that his anti-American rhetoric is costing him critical votes.
The insurgent leftist, who enlisted Piker’s help in defeating the Democratic establishment over the summer, is now urging the streamer to tone down his aggressive political commentary as the campaign seeks to shore up support among black and Jewish voters, according to CNN.
It’s the clearest sign yet that the California-based provocateur has become a political liability for El-Sayed, who is seeking to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. Piker has said America deserved 9/11, suggested Zionists should fear for their safety, and more recently told Axios that the United States is worse than al-Qaeda when it comes to terrorism.
El-Sayed’s debate performance did little to quell the concerns from his sharpest critics.
“If they were undecided going into this debate, I think Jewish Democrats in Michigan just decided who they will vote for,” Democratic political strategist Michael LaRosa said on X.
Still, El-Sayed holds a stable 3-point lead over Rogers with just 25 days to go until Election Day, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Meghan McCain, a conservative political commentator, argued that El-Sayed’s campaign is counting on the current political environment to allow him to squeak through to Washington.
“It’s very clear from the debate clips that El Sayed and his team are banking that the fundamentals have shifted so far radically in the Democrat party that he can treat the entire state of Michigan like it is Bushwick, Brooklyn,” she wrote on social media. “The question is if the gamble is in fact correct?”