During a recent town hall, a Michigan University student named Iman Dashti confronted Democratic Party’s Senate candidate Abdul el Sayed regarding his habitual whitewashing and rationalization of Islamic terrorism. Dashti, who says his family is a victim of the Iranian regime’s theocratic persecution, pressed the candidate numerous times to denounce one of the world’s most odious tyrannies.
Did el Sayed regret not speaking out against the tyrannical clerics of Iran?
Would he now renounce those who held vigils supporting the mass murderer Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?
Would he “unequivocally” condemn the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a group that’s not only tortured, imprisoned, and killed tens of thousands of Iranian civilians in the past year but is responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans?
The answer was no, no, and no. El Sayed wouldn’t.
Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, greets voters at Salina Intermediate School on election day, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
" data-image-caption="
Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, greets voters at Salina Intermediate School on election day, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/el-sayed-iran-sept-11.jpg?w=696" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/el-sayed-iran-sept-11.jpg?w=696" alt="Abdul el Sayed." class="wp-image-4742090" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/el-sayed-iran-sept-11.jpg 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...6/09/el-sayed-iran-sept-11.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...6/09/el-sayed-iran-sept-11.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...6/09/el-sayed-iran-sept-11.jpg?resize=150,100 150w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...6/09/el-sayed-iran-sept-11.jpg?resize=696,464 696w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">
Abdul El Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, greets voters at Salina Intermediate School on election day, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, in Dearborn, Mich. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Rather, the candidate offered a platitudinous word salad on how the United States should avoid becoming “the world’s policeman” and how we can still stand “in solidarity with freedom and democracy movements.”
First of all, Dashti didn’t ask el Sayed about regime change in Iran. He asked the candidate to offer a condemnation of some of the most odious characters in the world. El Sayed simply couldn’t do it. And it is important to ask why.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with arguing that the U.S. shouldn’t be the world’s policeman. But we already know that el Sayed has no qualms demanding that Americans act like the police. Otherwise, why would he demand the Trump administration arrest the elected prime minister of our ally Israel, Benjamin Netenyahu, at the behest of an international “court” helmed by activists from France, Benin, and Slovenia?
And el Sayed’s refusal to speak on the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, killed in a joint American Israeli air strike, had absolutely nothing to do with an aversion to the U.S. meddling abroad. We know this from leaked audio in which the candidate instructed his staff not to comment on the death of the medieval Islamic Twelver radical who led his nation in chants of ‘Death to America’ because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today.”
Judging from the preponderance of evidence, el Sayed was almost surely sad, himself.
El Sayed opposes U.S. involvement in foreign entanglements when it benefits his Islamists allies and is perfectly fine deploying it to other areas.
So, for instance, el Sayed not only wants to cut off U.S. aid to Israel but also stop any sales of military equipment, even defensive ones. El Sayed wants to see more dead Israelis. At the same time, he supports military aid to Ukraine, maintaining the difference is that, unlike the Jewish state, Ukraine was attacked by Russia, whom had broken “international law.”
Which means that el Sayed doesn’t consider the murder of over 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children against “international law.” Nor does he consider the launching of over 350 ballistic missiles at Israel by Iran — nearly two years before Operation Epic Fury was initiated — a belligerent act of war. Nor does he believe Hezbollah’s rocket and artillery strikes against Israel, including the deliberate targeting of Druze children, which began on Oct. 8, are a problem.
It makes sense. The first instinct of el Sayed, who once protested an appearance by reformed terrorists who had converted to Christianity, when a would-be Hezbollah terrorist attempted to slaughter a school filled with 4- and 5-year-old Jewish children, was “hurt people hurt people.”
Moreover, el Sayed is not part of any democracy or freedom “movement.” Even when condemning our aid to Muslim countries such as Egypt, which el Sayed claims has a “strangling grip” on people, his position strengthens Islamism. No one is going to argue that Egypt is a thriving liberal democracy right now. A “democracy,” on the other hand, would put the theocratic Muslim Brotherhood in power. That’s what el Sayed wants for Egypt.
All the things el Sayed says, and many of the things he won’t, add up to a perverted worldview.
There is no other reason a senate candidate would, by his own volition, invite Hasan Piker, the man who hasn’t run across an Islamic terrorist group or murderous communist he didn’t feel compelled to defend, to campaign with him.
These days, el Sayed keeps referring to Piker as a “twitch streamer in California” to gaslight journalists who ask him about the relationship. But if Piker was an irrelevant out-of-state social media personality, why did el Sayed feel compelled to campaign on numerous occasions? Occam’s razor tells us that el Sayed feels a connection, even holds similar views, to a man who believes the U.S. deserved 9/11.
El Sayed believes, at best, that Western nations are as evil or worse than jihadists. That moral equivalence was on display in a now-deleted 2021 tweet commemorating 9/11. “Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith,” El Sayed tweeted before adding, “Tomorrow, I’ll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country.”
It is clear from that comment that el Sayed believes we are far worse than the Islamist extremists of the Middle East. It is not surprising, considering the candidate is enveloped by groups and people who justify or support terrorism.
Considering El-Sayed wants to go to the Senate, it’s entirely fair to point out that his mother worked for a “global terrorist” group accused of funding bin Laden, Hamas, and the Taliban. Or that el Sayed’s father-in-law has donated to groups that fund the Muslim Brotherhood. Or that el Sayed’s allies include Amir Makled, a champion of Hezbollah (which has murdered hundreds of Americans, as well) and pro-Assad Imam Hassan Qazwini, pro-Hamas Holocaust-denying Sheikh Fadhel al-Sahlani. This week, el Sayed attended a fundraiser with Osama Siblani, the head of the Arab American Political Action Committee, a pro-terrorist advocate who believes Hamas are “freedom fighters.”
PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP BELONGS ON EVERY VOTER REGISTRATION
In a healthier era, any one of these relationships would have sunk a candidacy. At this point, Michigan voters are well aware of el Sayed’s radicalism, and yet he looks poised to become our first Islamist senator. Either voters don’t care, or they place partisanship above basic decency, or they’re fans of el Sayed’s anti-Americanism. After watching Democrats rally around candidates with Totenkopf tattoos, maybe the latter will be the norm.
Whatever the case, sending an Islamist to the Senate would be a major, tragic turning point in our history.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
