Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed faced roughly an hour of pointed questions Tuesday at a Detroit debate after Republican rival Mike Rogers declined to participate in the scheduled event.
Rogers rejected the station’s invitation earlier on the day of the debate, citing objections over moderator Roop Raj, whom his campaign argued was biased against the Republican candidate.
FOX 2 said both campaigns were invited on August 5, the day after Michigan’s primary, and that El-Sayed quickly accepted while Rogers did not formally decline until the morning of the debate.
Left alone on the debate stage, El-Sayed fielded questions from moderator Raj, viewers and members of the studio audience across a wide range of contentious topics.
Raj pressed El-Sayed on whether he could “completely, 100%” disavow offensive comments made by controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, a question that came just two days after El-Sayed resisted similar questioning on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
El-Sayed offered one of his most explicit condemnations of Piker yet, saying, “When Hasan made these comments about Jewish Americans and Jewish Michiganders, I disavowed them entirely.”
El-Sayed defended his decision to engage with Piker by arguing that speaking with someone does not amount to endorsing all of that person’s views, and said he wanted to offer Piker’s millions of followers “a pathway back into our politics.”
When pressed on whether the United States should continue recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, El-Sayed declined to give a yes-or-no answer, instead saying he believes “in equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinians and Jewish Israelis alike.”
El-Sayed also bypassed a direct answer on whether he would return campaign contributions from individuals affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), accusing Rogers of trying to turn the race into a “culture war” targeting his ethnicity and Muslim faith.
Fox News Digital previously reported that El-Sayed’s campaign received more than $115,000 from at least 41 individuals who worked for, previously worked for, or held leadership roles with CAIR, which has faced longstanding controversy over alleged ties to Hamas.
El-Sayed defended CAIR as a civil rights organization and accused Rogers of trying to make the election “about the color of my skin or how I pray.”
El-Sayed told the debate audience, “I believe in an America that is big enough for all of us: Mike Rogers, Donald Trump, JD Vance,” adding that his opponents “believe that some people are more American than others.”
On questions about his ties to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), El-Sayed insisted, “I’m not a part of the organization,” before defending his economic views and arguing that corporate consolidation poses a greater threat than government regulation.
“We don’t live in capitalism. We live in corporatism,” El-Sayed said, adding that “you don’t have to be a socialist to believe that people deserve health care.”
Fox News Digital previously reported that El-Sayed spoke at six events held by DSA chapters between 2017 and 2020, including a 2019 fundraiser where he served as a keynote speaker, even as he has repeatedly rejected the socialist label.
The two candidates are scheduled to meet on October 8 at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids and again on October 21 at WXYZ in Detroit ahead of the November general election.
