Abdul El-Sayed’s Unanswered Questions
The Free Press
Audrey Fahlberg
October 11, 2026
Few things seem to infuriate Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed more than questions about the Iranian regime.
During a press gaggle last Thursday afternoon in Grand Rapids, I asked him whether he regrets comments he made on a private campaign strategy call in March. That’s when he said, according to The Washington Free Beacon, that “I just don’t want to comment” on the assassination of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today” about his death.
Before I finished my question, he cut in to insist that the topic is completely “irrelevant” to the Senate race. The leaked audio, he explained, is “not relevant to people’s lives,” and he’s “just not interested in this dog and pony show” solely intended to create media “clicks.”
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“Ask smart questions,” the 41-year-old epidemiologist, son of Egyptian immigrants, and former public health official admonished me, shaking his head in disgust.
El-Sayed’s sensitivity to questions about the Iranian regime is revealing, as is his short fuse. This progressive Democrat’s campaign platform revolves around Medicare for All, getting corporate money out of politics, and ending U.S. military aid to Israel. He insists that questions about Iran are a distraction from issues voters care more about, like healthcare and the cost of living, even though, as I reminded him during our roughly one-minute exchange, he spent the entire primary campaign talking about foreign policy—railing against Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the Iran war.
Our exchange is part of a broader pattern for El-Sayed, who has repeatedly declined to disavow the Iranian regime. He dodged questions during a town hall last month about whether he would renounce people who held vigils for Ayatollah Khamenei and whether he stands “unequivocally against” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism. El-Sayed will not directly say whether he believes Israel or Iran is a bigger threat to America, calling it a “dumb question” to a News Nation reporter last week and a “ridiculous hypothetical”on the debate stage Thursday evening.
“Both of them have proven dangerous in their own way,” he said during the debate when pressed by a moderator on Israel and Iran. “One at risk of attacking us, one getting us into wars we have no business fighting.”
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Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed argues that questions about his stance on Iran distract from the issues voters care about most, like healthcare and the cost of living. But critics say his reluctance to condemn the Iranian regime raises serious questions about his judgment.
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El-Sayed’s reticence to criticize Iran’s terroristic regime is one of the reasons why Michigan’s Jewish population, many of whom are lifelong Democrats, are now weighing whether to support Rogers in November.
“It shocks me that he can’t even say Iran is a threat,” says Carey Bloom, a lifelong Democrat and member of Temple Israel, the Michigan synagogue that a terrorist attacked in March. “Even if he wanted to politic a little, he could say ‘Yes, Iran is dangerous, but I don’t agree with how President Trump went about it.’ He could still totally demonize Israel and Trump by still saying Iran is a threat, like other politicians have, and he doesn’t even do that.”
As Bloom sees it, “We cannot let Abdul enter the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party will not be recognizable in our lifetime.”
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