Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul el Sayed likened sex-change surgeries on children to circumcisions during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters, sparking fierce criticism.
The socialist candidate appeared Monday on Jesse Watters Primetime, where he was pressed on gender reassignment surgeries on children and sharia law bans. Tensions rose as Watters asked el Sayed if he thought it was OK for a parent to “slash his kid’s ding-a-ling off.” El Sayed responded by asking if the host was circumcised before trying to switch topics.
“When he brought up the circumcision part, it’s like, ‘My God’ — this is the difference between a nose job and decapitation,” Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York said Tuesday on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
Watters continued to challenge el Sayed on prior statements, including the candidate’s claim of a connection between banning sharia law and white supremacy. El Sayed began his argument by comparing sharia law to canon law.
“So, canon law is the name for Christian law,” el Sayed said to Watters. “I don’t begrudge you your right to practice your faith.”
Canon law refers to the internal system of rules within the Catholic Church rather than the broader Christian faith, governing its operations and providing guidance exclusively within the church institution, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. While sharia law is also a religious framework for Muslims, it has historically shaped and extended into state governance, economics, and social norms, according to Judiciaries Worldwide.
“If you do adversarial interviews that are going to challenge you, you need to be smart enough to handle them,” York said. “And clearly el Sayed thought he was, and he wasn’t.”
JESSE WATTERS SAYS ‘I ACTUALLY LIKE’ ABDUL EL SAYED AFTER INTERVIEWING HIM
York said the Democratic Party may begin experiencing “buyer’s remorse” about el Sayed being its Senate nominee in Michigan, especially as the general elections draw near.
“You’re going to see kind of an accumulating sense on the Left among Democrats that they’ve kind of made a mistake here in Michigan, and, of course, if they lose Michigan, it’s going to make it all that much harder to actually win the Senate,” York said.