Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, has declined a demand from his defeated primary rival, Congresswoman Haley Stevens, that he apologize for criticizing US military aid to Israel - a demand issued a mere two days before the two were scheduled to campaign together in Detroit. Because nothing says party unity like a public shaming with a joint appearance on the calendar.
The demand arrived with a helpful assist from Stevens's fiancé, who this week campaigned for El-Sayed's Republican opponent, former congressman Mike Rogers, at a Republican Jewish Coalition event, where he described the Democratic nominee's criticism of Israel as "100% disqualifying to be a United States senator." Nothing says "let's all get along" quite like your rival's plus-one stumping for the other guy.
El-Sayed responded Friday evening with a statement that politely declined to relitigate the primary, noting that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent heavily to defeat him. "Our campaign is and has always been focused on addressing the most critical challenges Michiganders are facing: Skyrocketing gas prices, unaffordable groceries, and the inability to see a doctor," he said.
"That focus is why our people-powered campaign defeated a historic $70M in outside spending from big corporations and AIPAC on behalf of Congresswoman Stevens," he continued. "Now the stakes are even higher-defeating Trump's hand-picked candidate, taking back the Senate, and defending our democracy."
"That should be the priority for all of us right now," he added. "So while Congresswoman Stevens seems intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago, let's all focus on the task at hand: that's beating Mike Rogers, holding Trump accountable, and getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and passing Medicare for All." Three months, for the record, is roughly 90 days - or, in primary-rival time, approximately nine minutes.
Stevens, for her part, had issued a lengthy statement repeating a demand she first made on CNN: that El-Sayed effectively denounce himself for antisemitism and racism. To assuage the fears of Black and Jewish voters who supported her in the primary, she said, El-Sayed needed to take down a tongue-in-cheek ad his campaign produced for rightwing cable news channels - one that includes a clip of Tucker Carlson saying he would not vote for Rogers - and condemn what she called an antisemitic ad made by an outside group founded by commentator Cenk Uygur, which blames US aid to Israel for high food prices.
El-Sayed's campaign had already said the ad posted online by Uygur - identified in Stevens's statement as the uncle of streamer Hasan Piker - was "not affiliated in any way" with him or his candidacy. The ad, which shows a fictional couple in a supermarket saying they must save money on groceries to pay "for killing Palestinians," wasn't even made in support of El-Sayed. It was repurposed from one originally produced in 2024 for Uygur's own, short-lived presidential campaign. Recycling: good for the planet, apparently less so for the discourse.
Despite that history, Stevens argued Uygur's ad was inspired by El-Sayed's rhetoric about Israel and insisted he apologize for that too. "Uygur's ad did not invent its argument; it dramatized one Dr. El-Sayed has made in his own words throughout this campaign: that Israel is the reason Michigan cannot afford schools, health care, and child care," she wrote.
"The standard here is simple," she continued. "If those words are wrong when a Political Action Committee supporting his campaign says them, then they are equally wrong when Abdul says them, and Abdul has said them from the start. I therefore expect him to apologize for those statements as well. Abdul promises to get money out of politics. He can begin by getting Israel out of his explanation for everything Michigan cannot afford."
The statement did not go down well with many Democratic activists. Tommy Vietor, a former Obama staffer and cohost of Pod Save America, posted: "If I was actually trying to harm Abdul's campaign, it would look a lot like the PR roll out we've seen from Haley that started with CNN, then her husband's bizarre tirade, and now this crazy, hyper online, conspiratorial statement about a TV ad Abdul obviously hates!"
"I have no idea what the hell Haley Stevens is doing," Michigan lawmaker Mallory McMorrow, who also ran in the Democratic primary, told CNN. "This is a moment where we have to recognize the stakes." McMorrow's husband, Ray Wert, posted a link to a detailed explanation of why "a vote for Mike Rogers is NOT a vote for Jewish safety," noting that the Republican refused to denounce far-right antisemites on his own campaign and is financially supported by "one of the country's leading financiers of Christian nationalism."
Leah Greenberg, a founder of the grassroots group Indivisible, was blunter still, accusing Stevens of a covert attempt to sabotage El-Sayed's campaign. "I don't know what the fuck is going on here," she wrote on social media, "but if you supported Stevens and you don't want to be associated with one of the most disgraceful, bigoted ratfucking attempts in recent political history I encourage you to let her know that this must stop immediately."
Meanwhile, Rogers has relentlessly repeated the lie that El-Sayed - the Michigan-born son of Egyptian immigrants - "publicly supported" the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. In fact, El-Sayed signed an open letter in support of Egypt's fledgling democracy in 2012 that made no mention of the Islamist group at all. A minor detail, easily lost in the shuffle of a busy campaign season.
And then there was Donald Trump. Early in his remarks to supporters in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Friday, the president recounted what he cast as very real and not at all imaginary conversations with one Black friend and one Jewish friend in Michigan who asked his advice on whether to vote for El-Sayed or Rogers. He began by making the wildly false, bigoted claim that "Abdul's a jihadist."
He then said: "I have a friend, he's Jewish. He said, 'What do you think I should do in Michigan?' I said, 'Are you stupid?' He's not voting for Abdul. I have another friend, he's black. He said, 'What do you recommend?' I said, 'I recommend you go Republican'. He said, 'Okay, that's what I'm going to do'."
"Now if you're Black or if you're Jewish and you vote for Abdul, you're not smart," Trump said, pressing the Republican attempt to peel Black and Jewish voters in Michigan away from El-Sayed. "I'm being nice. You're not smart."
Moments later, the president spotted supporters in the crowd he recognized. "Oh, I have my friends over here, Blacks for Trump. I love these guys," Trump said of the group founded by Maurice Symonette, also known as Michael the Black Man - a former member of a violent cult who posts antisemitic screeds and racist conspiracy theories online, and yet has been a featured member of the audience at Trump campaign events since 2016. Symonette was interviewed before the rally by the pro-Trump network Real America's Voice, presumably to provide the day's most coherent commentary.
Symonette was known as Maurice Woodside until 1992, when the Black supremacist cult leader he followed, Yahweh ben Yahweh, was jailed for leading a conspiracy to murder 14 white people in initiation rites. Woodside was among the Miami-based Nation of Yahweh cult members charged in two of the murders, but he was acquitted. After the trial, he reinvented himself as Michael the Black Man, a pirate radio preacher who delivered broadsides against gays and Democrats. His online sermons and writings suggest he still sees himself as a follower of the cult leader, who died in 2007.
So to recap: a Senate race in Michigan, a primary that ended three months ago, $70M in outside spending, a repurposed ad from a short-lived 2024 presidential campaign, a demand for an apology about a TV ad the candidate says he hates, and a president sharing imaginary conversations about a "jihadist" while standing next to a cult survivor. Democracy, as ever, remains a work in progress.