Michigan Democrats Want Reporters to Stop Asking Hard Questions

By
Mark Stevens
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Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is facing renewed questions over his association with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker after Piker made remarks about American Jews that prompted criticism from Democrats inside the state.

Now Rep. Debbie Dingell is making it clear she wants the campaign to move on.

During an El-Sayed campaign event Wednesday, Dingell told reporters that the November contest between El-Sayed and Republican Rep. Mike Rogers should not revolve around Piker, despite the streamer’s previous involvement with El-Sayed’s campaign.

“I’m done,” Dingell said. “This election is about what’s going to happen when we elect Abdul [El-Sayed] to the United States Senate.”

“So, don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker, it’s not what November is about,” she continued.


The problem for El-Sayed is that Piker was not some obscure online personality who suddenly became connected to his campaign. El-Sayed previously appeared and campaigned with the streamer, whose enormous online following gave the relatively little-known former Wayne County health official access to a substantial progressive audience.

Piker was already controversial. Among his most notorious comments was his statement that “America deserved 9/11,” remarks for which he later expressed regret over his wording. He has also made inflammatory statements about Israel and the U.S. Constitution.

El-Sayed previously resisted calls to distance himself from Piker over those controversies.

The relationship came under substantially greater pressure last week after Piker displayed a photograph of Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is Jewish and openly gay, during a livestream discussion about American Jews and Israel.

“If Jews in America keep putting this — this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews,” Piker said.

The remarks were interpreted by critics as threatening or warning of violence against American Jews. That prompted El-Sayed to issue a statement distancing himself from the rhetoric.


“I believe all Americans deserve the right to advocate for what they believe without fear of violence,” El-Sayed said, adding that his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters.”

The statement did not end the controversy.

Dingell, a longtime figure in Michigan Democratic politics who has served in Congress since 2015, stepped into the dispute Wednesday and accused Republicans of trying to make Piker a central issue in the general election.

“Republicans are trying to make it, they’re trying to divide us, and we got to stop letting them try to divide us,” Dingell said.

She also made clear that she has substantial disagreements with Piker.

“I don’t agree with Hasan Piker on a lot of stuff, and I really don’t agree with him on some of the woman things he said,” Dingell said. “And we need to win in November, and we will reverse all of the things that they have done.”

But Piker is creating tensions beyond Republican attacks.


Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan publicly criticized the streamer on X, saying Piker is “hurting the chances of a Democratic majority in November.” Politico also reported that Scholten was declining to coordinate campaign events with El-Sayed.

That makes the controversy more difficult to dismiss simply as an opposition attack.

Piker’s previous statements were public before El-Sayed campaigned alongside him. In addition to the 9/11 remark, Piker has used extraordinarily vulgar language to express contempt for the Constitution, once saying, “I f*** the Constitution. I wipe my a** with the Constitution. It’s a f***ing piece of paper, dude.”

Those comments were already part of Piker’s public record when his relationship with El-Sayed became politically valuable.

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