War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s father weighed in on the Michigan Senate race on Friday by going after Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed.
While speaking on comedian Hasan Minhaj’s podcast earlier in the week, el Sayed discussed a topic that’s come up often throughout his campaign against Republican rival Mike Rogers: sports.
But instead of taking aim at Rogers, el Sayed conjectured about how Hegseth’s parents treated their son’s athletic life differently than his did.
“Pete Hegseth, everybody knows that guy from the locker room. He would have rode the pine,” el Sayed said, using an idiom referring to sitting on the bench. “He probably got to start two games his entire career playing whatever sport it was, and his parents came and cheered so hard for him. And as a kid whose parents never came, right, and started every game, part of me is just like, bro, I feel bad for you, somebody told you you were a lot better than you really are.”
Sports has emerged as a key theme throughout the Michigan Senate race, largely due to both Rogers and el Sayed claiming past athletic prowess.
El Sayed served as the captain of his high school football team and played club lacrosse at the University of Michigan, while Rogers also played high school football and is the son of a football coach. Rogers has highlighted this theme in advertisements and knocked el Sayed for a 2021 essay he wrote in which he referenced football in the context of “toxic masculinity.”
Hegseth’s father, Brian Hegseth, jumped into the fray by saying el Sayed suffers from “little man syndrome” and he “has no idea what he’s talking about.” Hegseth played basketball at Princeton University.
“Proud to say, as Pete’s dad, he was an absolute star on the court in HS. Captain, all-conference, all-state player… earned!” he said. “We parents have cheered him on, yes. That’s what families do–support each other. #Envy makes him bitter.”
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“But for him, the very fact that he made the team, his mom was making cake, she was wearing his jersey, she had a cap made for him,” el Sayed also said. “You know the type. So I’m like, bro, you grew up thinking you are somehow special, but you are not, and you have been living off that fume for the rest of your life. Could you imagine what we would have become if we had supportive parents who just uplifted us for being mediocre?”
The race between el Sayed and Rogers has become one of the nation’s highest-profile matchups, as the winner may decide whether Republicans retain control of the Senate. El Sayed holds a slight edge over Rogers ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections, according to the most recent RealClearPolitics polling average.