{"id":78057,"date":"2026-08-29T17:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T22:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/29\/abdul-el-sayed-peppered-with-questions-on-hasan-piker-link-fracture-with-jewish-dems-at-michigan-convention\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T17:55:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T22:55:21","slug":"abdul-el-sayed-peppered-with-questions-on-hasan-piker-link-fracture-with-jewish-dems-at-michigan-convention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/29\/abdul-el-sayed-peppered-with-questions-on-hasan-piker-link-fracture-with-jewish-dems-at-michigan-convention\/","title":{"rendered":"Abdul El-Sayed peppered with questions on Hasan Piker link, fracture with Jewish Dems at Michigan convention"},"content":{"rendered":"

LANSING, Mich. \u2014 Socialist-adjacent Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed<\/a> addressed the media during Saturday’s state Democratic Party Nominating Convention, where he was dogged by many of the same questions that have plagued his campaign for months.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by media in a hallway at the Lansing Center, where the convention took place, El-Sayed was peppered with questions from the press about his relationship with far-left online personality Hasan Piker<\/a>, along with his stance on Israel and Gaza, which has driven a wedge between his campaign and some Democrats, especially Jewish ones.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re in the state of Michigan. If you want to make this race about a streamer in California, I just think you\u2019re missing the boat,” El-Sayed told reporters. “This is about affordability in Michigan. This is about seeing a doctor in Michigan. This is about Donald Trump\u2019s disastrous policies in Michigan. That\u2019s what I\u2019m focused on right now.”<\/p>\n

ABDUL EL-SAYED PLAYS DOWN HASAN PIKER TIES AFTER STREAMER\u2019S VIRAL ANTISEMITISM FIRESTORM<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Four different reporters asked El-Sayed about Piker<\/a>, with whom he campaigned and partied during his primary race. He dodged all of them, falling back on describing the polarizing streamer as “a streamer from California” who is irrelevant to his race in Michigan.<\/p>\n

“I am not interested in a conversation about a social media person in California. And to folks who want to make this about a social media person in California, let\u2019s not forget what actually matters in our politics, what our politics are really about,” he said. “I don\u2019t ever want my comments to hurt anybody\u2019s feelings. It\u2019s important to me that people understand that I take serious the pain of all communities in this state. But I don\u2019t want to have a conversation about a Twitch streamer in California. This is not a serious conversation.”<\/p>\n

EL-SAYED DISTANCES HIMSELF FROM HASAN PIKER AFTER DISTURBING REMARKS ABOUT JEWISH AMERICANS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Piker is known for saying “America deserved 9\/11,” praising Mao Zedong and Communist China, arguing that capitalists should be murdered in the streets and making a litany of antisemitic comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital asked El-Sayed about a recent controversy stemming from comments he made in March in response to an attack on a Michigan synagogue, when federal investigators say a gunman\u00a0inspired and radicalized by Hezbollah<\/a>\u00a0crashed into the place of worship seeking to kill as many Jewish people as he could.<\/p>\n

“Hurt people, hurt people,” he said in response to the attack. He has been criticized by members of his own Party, including Secretary of State Dana Nessel, who discussed the comments in a recent interview with The Atlantic, and declined to attend Saturday’s convention partly over concerns of anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

JEWISH DEM DEFECTIONS THREATEN EL-SAYED IN MICHIGAN SENATE RACE DECIDED BY RAZOR-THIN MARGINS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

El-Sayed told Fox News Digital his comments “might have been misconstrued to be justifying something I did not intend to justify,” but then offered an apology.<\/p>\n

“To anybody who feels like my comments may have been hurtful, I\u2019m really sorry. That was not my intention. We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright,” El-Sayed told Fox News Digital. “What I was trying to do was offer context for why it happened, but it wasn\u2019t the time for context and you don\u2019t ever want to trample somebody\u2019s pain.”<\/p>\n

JEWISH AG\u2019S CONVENTION BOYCOTT EXPOSES DEEPENING ISRAEL FAULT LINE AMONG MICHIGAN DEMOCRATS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

He also said it was the responsibility of the Democratic Party to come together.<\/p>\n

Michigan Democrats swarmed the convention center Saturday afternoon, where the theme was “unity” amid the controversies faced by the state’s highest-profile candidate for elected office.<\/p>\n

Other statewide candidates took the stage to rally attendees, and presented a united front, often invoking their opposition to President Donald Trump as a point of common interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LANSING, Mich. \u2014 Socialist-adjacent Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed addressed the media during Saturday’s state Democratic Party Nominating Convention, where he was dogged by many of the same questions that have plagued his campaign for months. Surrounded by media in a hallway at the Lansing Center, where the convention took place, El-Sayed was peppered … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}