Michigan’s left-wing Democratic Senate nominee, who vastly underperformed public polling in eking out a very narrow primary victory, has a pat answer when he’s asked about his close friend and campaign surrogate, Hasan Piker.
Abdul el Sayed has appeared on Piker’s show multiple times and invited him to come stump for him on the campaign trail. Now that there is scrutiny on Piker, who said that “America deserved 9/11” and has expressed open support for various terrorist groups and communist regimes, El-Sayed seems to have forgotten Piker’s name.
“Who, him? This race isn’t about ‘a streamer from California,’” el Sayed repeatedly says when confronted with his ally’s vile beliefs. But as Piker has confirmed, the request for him to appear in Michigan with el Sayed came from el Sayed himself. Republican nominee Mike Rogers has nicknamed Piker as el Sayed’s “running mate.”
The Democrat enthusiastically embraced Piker and his toxic agenda in order to barely win his party’s nomination, so his fake ghosting of Piker ahead of a general election is a transparently cynical performance. Republicans have put together a compilation of some of Piker’s appalling lowlights, interspersed with plenty of evidence of how tight he and el Sayed are — including the candidate gushing over his thread and explicitly declining to disavow Piker’s sick beliefs:
I’ll leave you with Piker feigning umbrage (“ridiculous!” “laughable!”) over any suggestion that he or el Sayed hate America. Oh, really? Roll tape (content warning for language):
This “streamer from California” should be a disqualifying liability for el Sayed, who shares much of his destructive and extreme ideology.
SENATE DEMOCRATS EMERGE UNITED BEHIND ABDUL EL SAYED AFTER CLOSED-DOOR MEETING
In a neutral political environment, it likely would be. But in what is shaping up to be a blue-tinted year, some very problematic figures may get swept into power if voters decide to deliver a generalized backlash against the party in power.
Michigan voters need to think long and hard about whether sending that message of frustration and dissatisfaction is worth electing someone like this.