Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed keeps getting asked direct questions. His answers keep going somewhere else.
Katy Tur put one of them to him Friday. Jewish voters in Michigan are worried about his association with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, she said. So why keep Piker close, or refuse to fully disassociate from him, in a state this tight?
Katy Tur: “Jewish voters are worried about your association with Hasan Piker. Why keep him so close?”
El-Sayed: “This campaign is not about a streamer from California”
Tur continues to press him, but he refuses to disavow Piker pic.twitter.com/fTcKDDGVhT
— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) August 28, 2026
“If you have Jewish voters in Michigan, I’ll say Dana Nessel is one of them, who are worried about your association with Hasan Piker, why keep him so close? Or why not fully disassociate yourself with him, especially when Michigan is so tight?”
El-Sayed started with Mike Rogers, moved to Donald Trump and then affordability. Piker never really got an answer.
“This campaign is not about a streamer in California. This campaign is about affordability in Michigan.”
Tur wasn’t buying it. She pointed out that Piker campaigns for Democrats, so he is “not just a streamer.” When El-Sayed blamed the media for the focus on Piker, Tur cut in again: “It’s not just the media, and I reject that framing.”
It wasn’t the first time this week.
During his appearance on Jesse Watters’ show, El-Sayed was asked about his support for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He argued that immigration laws were enforced before ICE existed through the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS. He also accused ICE of bringing “tyranny” under the guise of the federal government.
🚨 MUST WATCH: ABDUL EL-SAYED TORCHED OVER WANTING TO ABOLISH ICE🚨
“You got a guy here from Southeast Asia, MOLESTED a kid, ICE just picked him up. You want that guy to stay in Michigan, ABDUL?” 🔥 pic.twitter.com/OgmomvcB99
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 25, 2026
Watters eventually put a specific case in front of him, referring to a man from Southeast Asia accused of molesting a child who ICE had picked up.
“You want that guy to stay in Michigan?”
El-Sayed said he was “glad that that guy got picked up,” but immediately returned to arguing that INS could have done the same thing and called the distinction between the agencies a “bureaucratic game.” Watters countered that the increase in illegal immigration was tied to former President Joe Biden’s border policies, not ICE itself.
It isn’t only interviewers he’s been dodging.
After Vance went after his past comments on Sharia law, El-Sayed brought Second Lady Usha Vance into it, asking whether Vance would take his Indian-American wife “back in time to meet Papaw.” The jab suggested Vance’s white, working-class grandfather would have rejected Usha because of her race.
El-Sayed has gone after Usha before. During an April podcast appearance, he repeatedly referred to the Vances’ children as “Brown kids,” claimed JD Vance believed his own children were less American, and told Usha to leave her husband. He did not address any of it when Vance raised the criticism about Sharia law; he just reached for Usha’s race instead.
The subject keeps changing. The dodge doesn’t.
El-Sayed would rather be talking about affordability and Donald Trump. But the questions following him around Michigan are about things he has already said, people he has already embraced, and policies he has already backed. Changing the subject hasn’t gotten rid of any of them.
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