Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed on Wednesday ripped into President Donald Trump, referencing his top aide, Natalie Harp, amid gossip about the pair’s relationship.
During a town hall in Farmington Hills, el Sayed turned a campaign speech against Trump as he hit his GOP rival, former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, over his alliance with the president. El Sayed railed against the way Trump pronounces his name and sardonically referenced Harp, saying the president would be sure to share his remarks with his top aide. Trump and Harp’s relationship has recently become the subject of speculation after several letters she wrote to him surfaced that documented her intense connection to the president.
“Donald Trump, because he can’t resist the red meat, can’t seem to keep my name out of his mouth. Habibi [Arabic for beloved], if you can’t say the name, don’t say the name. ‘Abdul, Abdul.’ You don’t gotta say it like that, man, it’s creepy,” he told the crowd. “’Abdul’ — he holds on to the ‘L’ a little too long. ‘Abdulll.’ You know Natalie’s going to show him this clip and he’s going to be so mad.”
El Sayed continued to attack Trump over his tariff policy, while swinging in some searing swipes at Rogers.
“Donald Trump doesn’t understand economics. I get, he, you know, you get money from daddy, become a nepo baby, and then all of a sudden you think you’re some kind of like, you know, master businessman,” he said. “These tariffs are simply about his ego, and he wants us to have to pay for them.”
“Mike Rogers is going to do nothing but rubber-stamp it. He literally wants to rubber-stamp a policy that he knows makes no sense. To kowtow to the ego of Donald Trump,” he added. “The thing about Mike Rogers, which makes him so much more frustrating, is that he knows better. So it’s one thing to be an idiot. It’s another entirely to be so small as a human being as to know the other person is an idiot and do what they want anyway, because all you want is power.”
El Sayed sits on the left wing of the political spectrum and holds a range of positions that echo socialist proposals, though he insists he is a capitalist.
The Senate hopeful wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, eliminate medical debt, and institute “Medicare for all.” El Sayed also backs government ownership of artificial intelligence. He supports a wealth tax on those earning over $100 million, along with a capital gains tax hike, a personal income tax hike, and the elimination of corporate tax breaks. He has been targeted for appearing to concede that the middle class, or those earning under $1 million, will also face higher taxes to finance his progressive healthcare model.
On housing, el Sayed has vowed to target “corporate landlords against unfair evictions,” wants to ban large corporations from owning homes, and supports barring algorithmic rental price-fixing software that he says allows landlords “to collude to raise rent.”
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On foreign policy, the Senate candidate has favored a more isolationist-leaning stance, denouncing the war in Iran.
El Sayed’s stance on Israel has drawn particular attention in the race after he campaigned with Hasan Piker earlier this year. El Sayed’s association with Piker has been controversial due to concerns that the Twitch streamer is antisemitic, including repeated denials or downplaying of sweeping sexual violence against Jews in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, saying he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time” and calling Hamas “a thousand times better” than Israel. Hamas is the terrorist organization that controls Gaza, which borders Israel.