El-Sayed lashes out at defeated rival over demand to condemn ‘antisemitic’ ad
El-Sayed’s campaign asked Haley Stevens to stay away from its remaining events, reports said Saturday, derailing a planned unity appearance before Tuesday’s vote
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed lashed out Friday at his defeated primary rival after she demanded that he condemn an advertisement widely denounced as antisemitic, invoking his victory over her without explicitly repudiating the ad.
Responding to Rep. Haley Stevens, El-Sayed revived grievances over the primary, boasting that his campaign had defeated what he described as $70 million in outside spending from “big corporations and AIPAC” supporting her. He accused Stevens of seeming “intent on relitigating a primary that ended three months ago” and urged Democrats to concentrate on defeating Republican Mike Rogers.
By Saturday, the confrontation had derailed an attempted show of Democratic unity before Tuesday’s vote. El-Sayed’s campaign asked Stevens to stay away from its remaining events, CBS News reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The two had been expected to appear with Rep. Jim Clyburn at a Detroit church on Sunday.
The dispute centered on a Rebellion PAC advertisement promoted by Cenk Uygur, co-founder of The Young Turks, whom Stevens pointedly identified as “Hasan Piker’s uncle.” The video endorsed El-Sayed, although his campaign said it had no affiliation with it.
The ad depicted a couple shopping for groceries, with a woman telling her partner to put back eggs because “we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.” It also suggested that Americans were financing Israel’s universal health care and portrayed Rogers as prioritizing Israelis over his constituents. Anti-Defamation League chief Jonathan Greenblatt called it a “case study in antisemitism.”
Stevens rejected the campaign’s attempt to distance itself from the advertisement without addressing its substance. “A disclaimer is not a condemnation,” she said. She also charged that the spot echoed El-Sayed’s own campaign rhetoric linking aid to Israel with inadequate funding for American public services, and demanded an apology for those remarks.
El-Sayed’s Friday response offered neither that apology nor an explicit condemnation of the advertisement. Instead, he emphasized grocery prices, health care and defeating Rogers.