Twenty-five years after September 11, Michigan’s Democratic Party nominated Abdul El-Sayed for the United States Senate. Ask yourself whether it would have nominated anyone twenty-five years after Pearl Harbor who kept company like his.
Ask yourself a simple question. Twenty-five years after Pearl Harbor, would American political party have nominated a candidate for the United States Senate who spent his campaign’s final months on stage with a man who said America deserved that attack? The answer is no. Not close. Not debatable. Yet twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, Michigan Democrats have just handed their Senate nomination to Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate who repeatedly campaigned alongside a commentator who said precisely that about 9/11, and much of the political press has treated it as a footnote.
The commentator is Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer with millions of followers who has said America deserved 9/11 and once declared he would never criticize Mao Zedong, calling him one of the great leaders of the world. Piker campaigned with El-Sayed at rallies in Ann Arbor and East Lansing last spring, and he was at El-Sayed’s side again on the eve of the Democratic primary, at a Detroit pool party the night before voters went to the polls. This was not a single lapse in judgment. It was a pattern, sustained across an entire campaign, right up to the final hours.
El-Sayed’s answer, when pressed, was not to distance himself. It was to explain the partnership away. He said he stood with Piker. That Piker did not mean he endorsed everything Piker had said, yet he failed to condemn Piker’s radical views. He defended the relationship on shared views on economic policy and foreign affairs. Fair enough, as far as it goes. Leadership, though, is measured by who a candidate chooses to stand beside when the cameras roll, not only by what he says himself. On that test, El-Sayed came up short again and again, and he kept coming back for more.
None of this happened in a vacuum. El-Sayed’s own rhetoric on Israel has been some of the sharpest in the Democratic Party. He has called Israel’s conduct in Gaza a genocide, described the Israeli government as an illegal apartheid regime, and said Israel had become as bloodthirsty as Hamas. He has declined to say clearly whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, calling the question inextricable from his wider critique of its government. His primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, put it plainly: Piker had made hurtful and antisemitic comments. Voters can decide what it says about a candidate’s judgment when he shares a stage, night after night, with the very figure his own party colleague was condemning in those terms.
A PLATFORM TO MATCH THE COMPANY HE KEEPS
Piker’s relationship would be easier to write off as isolated if it did not fit so neatly into the rest of El-Sayed’s record. El-Sayed has told cheering crowds he is the only Senate candidate who will abolish ICE outright. Arguing the agency cannot be reformed or retrained. He built his political brand in part on a call to defund the police. El-Sayed’s own writing said that cities spend too much on departments and too little on schools. Social services, before quietly deleting the posts as the general election neared. He has co-written a book on implementing single-payer, Medicare for All health care, and his platform layers on tuition-free public college, universal child care, and a sharply expanded federal role in American life. You know all the things we can’t afford.
Each of these positions are a legitimate subject for debate. Michigan voters are entitled to weigh them on the merits. Government-run health care, an unenforced southern border, and a smaller police budget are not abstractions. They are choices with consequences, and Republicans should make that argument plainly, on the policy, without needing to put words in El-Sayed’s mouth. He has supplied more than enough of his own.
That is precisely why the Piker question matters so much. It is not a distraction from the policy debate. It is a preview of the judgment behind it. A candidate willing to share a stage, and a pool party, with a man who said “… America deserved 9/11…” is telling voters something important about where his priorities sit when the crowd is cordial, and the cameras are on. El-Sayed and Piker are both Jew Haters, America haters, as is the DSA.
THE CHOICE IN FRONT OF MICHIGAN
Republicans do not need to exaggerate any of this. They shouldn’t try either. The facts, stated plainly, make the case on their own. El-Sayed campaigned with Piker. Piker said “… America deserved 9/11…” and praised Mao Zedong. El-Sayed defended standing beside him anyway. Layer that judgment on top of a platform built around Medicare for All, an abolished ICE, a defunded police budget, and a foreign policy that brands a strategic American ally as a genocidal, apartheid state, and Michigan voters are looking at a candidate who represents a genuine break from the mainstream, not a rebrand of it.
The Republican alternative is Rep.Mike Rogers; He doesn’t need slogans; he has the facts on his side. Rep. Rogers Loves America; we wish we could say the same about El-Sayed, but we can’t! It requires a plain contrast: secure borders enforced by the agencies built to enforce them, police departments funded well enough to keep communities safe. Energy policy that esteems reliability and affordability alongside innovation. Health care reform that expands choice instead of abolishing it. A foreign policy that stands with allies like Israel instead of conditioning their survival on Washington’s mood.
Twenty-five years ago this September, a generation of Americans watched their country attacked and grieved together, regardless of party. Twenty-five years later, Michigan Democrats nominated a man who spent his campaign’s closing weeks beside someone who said the country had it coming. Ask again whether either party would have made that same choice twenty-five years after Pearl Harbor. The honest answer should trouble every voter in Michigan, and it should be the first question Abdul El-Sayed is asked between now and November.
ENDNOTES
- Andrew Lapin, “Slamming Israel at Michigan rallies, Hasan Piker boosts Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed,” Times of Israel / JTA, April 9, 2026. https://www.timesofisrael.com/slamming-israel-at-michigan-rallies-hasan-piker-boosts-senate-candidate-abdul-el-sayed/
- “El-Sayed pals around with far-left streamer Hasan Piker the day before crucial Michigan Senate election,” Fox News, August 2026. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/el-sayed-pals-around-far-left-streamer-hasan-piker-day-before-crucial-michigan-senate-election
- “Fact-checking Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens’ claims ahead of the Michigan Democratic Senate primary,” PBS News, August 2026. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-abdul-el-sayed-and-haley-stevens-claims-ahead-of-the-michigan-democratic-senate-primary
- “Abdul El-Sayed is courting Jewish voters, without moderating his views on Israel,” The Forward, June 12, 2026. https://forward.com/news/831230/abdul-el-sayed-michigan-jewish-israel-senate-haley-stevens-mallory-mcmorrow/
- Haley Stevens quoted in “Democratic Senate candidate’s events with Hasan Piker expose party rift in Michigan,” CBS News, April 9, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hasan-piker-michigan-senate-race-abdul-el-sayed/
- “Michigan Democrat Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed: ‘I’m the Only One That Will Abolish ICE,'” The Gateway Pundit, May 4, 2026. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/05/michigan-democrat-senate-candidate-abdul-el-sayed-im/
- “Unearthed clip exposes more anti-police rhetoric as El-Sayed gets grilled for deleting social media posts,” Fox News, June 18, 2026. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/unearthed-clip-exposes-more-anti-police-rhetoric-el-sayed-gets-grilled-deleting-social-media-posts
- “Who is Abdul El-Sayed? What to know about Michigan Democrats’ US Senate winner,” Bridge Michigan, August 2026. https://bridgemi.com/michigan-government/who-is-abdul-el-sayed-what-to-know-about-michigan-democrats-us-senate-winner/
- “Abdul El-Sayed Promises Jewish Voters He Will Fight Anti-Semitism, After Broadside Against ‘Arming’ Israel,” Mediaite, August 2026. https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/abdul-el-sayed-promises-jewish-voters-he-will-fight-anti-semitism-after-broadside-against-arming-israel/
Jacob Silver writes on national politics and public affairs for Direct Line News.
Direct Line News is a Maryland-based free-access publication committed to the Republican reform tradition.
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